1 Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore

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BANGALORE | 2005 | JULY - AUGUST EDITION
At long last… Quirk’s July-August edition is here!
‘The 4 th Edition’ – seems pedestrian enough, but it’s been a learning experience like never before! Showcasing a much awaited theme
- ‘M Y P LACE IN A NARCHY’ – we’ve found some great voices, and in like spirit the Quirk Team looks forward to aggressively increase
expression, promote readership, and help provoke a more vibrant literary community of young people across South Asia. Anarchy?
Yes, please!
Some things remain the same: our objective, as always – to fire the first salvos for a sorely needed literary revolution (college-variety
and college-style).
DO HELP THE MISSION. READ. WRITE. SHARE. CONTRIBUTE. ENGAGE.
And look out for Edition 5!

2. My Way in Anarchy | 3. The Imaginary Death of a Fictional Hero | 4. Solitude | 5. His Relic | 6. Quirk Crossword | 8. The Fisherman’s Dirge | 9. Grilling: A History

Another step, Another day: Narratives from NLSIU

6:00 am- I’m keenly reading through an article on stem-cell research without really grasping anything. If somebody else had been around then I would have pretended to comprehend. It’s
like all those times in the college library or the computer room where one deliberately laughs out aloud while reading anonymous ‘blogs’ posing as literary spoofs. There is hardly anything
which registers but the motivation to laugh like a donkey is clearly driven by a curiosity about how people in adjacent spaces might react to the same. Needless to say, on most instances
I keep smirking and talking to myself. At this moment it’s time to catch some sleep.

8:45 am- “Holy crap!” the alarm didn’t go off. I woke up in a hurry pocketing my toothbrush and paste for use during the recess while grabbing a notebook. I manage to make it to class,
just in time for the attendance. The first lecture streams by in a half-conscious state. The second hour is slightly better and I manage to scribble down some references. The rest of the day
is likely to follow a moribund routine and I really can’t think of much to write, except those ‘Dear Diary’ type entries. Alright, there are some things in life which are better written than said.

When was the last time you saw all the people around you growing bull-horns and just asking for that proverbial ‘punch’? I’m not talking about those group gatherings where everyone is
taking a ‘cheap shot’ at you. I’m talking about all that time you spent walking in a crowd, hoping to find a known face. Or inversely even those lecture-hours where certain characters keep
raising questions that make you pull your hair out. I’m referring to that persisting sense of being an anomaly in the system and yet being a cog in the same wheel. There’s a sense of continuity
as well as discontinuity at the same time.

One can’t exactly spread dynamite sticks and blow up a bridge or something like what Clint Eastwood did in ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’. Neither can I play a schizophrenic and get
away with violent outburst in the manner Edward Norton does in ‘Fight Club.’ Since blowing up offices of financial companies is also not an option, the mind scouts for alternative means
to express rage against the ‘machine’ of everyday life.
If you refer to a Shakespearean extract from your miniscule memory, you will be called an ‘elitist bastard’. If you try and talk about ‘climate change’ then that is dismissed as irrelevant
speculation. If you talk about how Panchayats work, you’re a hopeless idealist. If you mention a police ‘lathi-charge’ on a workers’ rally, then nobody’s remotely interested because it
happened in a different part of the country. Anything which varies from pre-shaped notions about what people want at the end of their degree is met with immediate and uninformed
disapproval.

Right, the rest of the world has lost its’ sense of inquisitiveness, it’s penchant for exploration, it’s sense of wonder and all that crap. So what do I do about it? I rely on caricaturing when speaking
to people. It brings out the best and the worst in them since even the most mundane questions appear different when asked with several distortions on the face. On other days I let loose with
heavy doses of one-way traffic in trivia, i.e. mostly irrelevant and unverified information.

It’s difficult to relate to people, difficult to identify with a ‘collective’ identity- institution, class, family, caste, country and whatever else can be identified with. There’s no running away from
it either. My place is right here, neither in the perceived collective of the ‘establishment’ nor in the conception of alternative spaces. My place is in a mixture of both.

(SIDHARTH CHAUHAN, III YR, NLSIU. BESIDES TESTING THE LIMITS OF HUMAN ENDURANCE WITH DISTORTED FACIAL EXPRESSIONS, I ALSO TAKE PART IN QUIZZES, DEBATES AND MAKE THE OCCASIONAL ATTEMPT AT WRITING
PLAYS. IN ALL OF THE ABOVE, PLAGIARISM IS THE KEY TOOL.)

I could keep you in suspense and float blissfully through the lines not
quite letting you know who I am but I decided against it for no particular
Manic
Mirror
reason. I am a Dust Particle. In the world of Dust Particles the Brownian
motion1 of oscillating, colliding and moving on, occurs incessantly from second
to second. Light, streaming in through an open window, at a dainty angle to the
floor, unveils this apparent chaos in our world.
The older generations prefer the dark comfort of yellowing pages of
My Place In Multiplicity
the AIR manuals, the melodious sneezing of beings who open the manuals to

Anarchy
discover a long dormant dust colony, the lazy drifting around the shelves and
the return to the land of silver-worm. Yet the times they are a-changing. Hanging
out in the mouthpiece of a telephone receiver is becoming passé. It’s the
mobile phone, the nooks and crannies in that ever-morphing device that catches Spectacles divide my sooty vision
the attention of the hedonists. Snug between the screen and its protective Myopic, menopausal, meandering
covering many an interesting day can be spent reading messages, looking at There lies
candid snaps, and if you are lucky a scandalous video or two may come your So that’s it, then. My broken mosaic
way. Several disjuncted ‘I’s
She lies there, never to move again.
My personal favorite is however the cozy corner between the Screaming, rebelling,
Spacebar and Alt keys on a laptop. The view is generally quite entertaining, A sniff, an odd tear, some flowers.
I stand there, numbed by it all, Dragging mud-soaked feet in hasty indifference
there is often good music and the quick bursts of moving air, at irregular Drowning in a sea of confident psuedoisms
intervals, when the Spacebar is hit, provide welcome relief on sunny arid days. Overwhelmed by a few fleeting moments.
I can always float past to another laptop when the owner of the current one is It’s unbelievable, it’s shocking...
hell bent on reading cases from Manupatra and listening to the same set of It’s so temporary that it doesn’t even matter.
twelve songs. I’d go instead to a multitasking owner who would provide some What is anyone’s life worth? My CV-briefcase skateboards its way to delirium
sentimental mails, some refreshing Messenger sessions (with that half silly An old story here, a reminiscence there The next moment,
flourish sound accompanying every message), some net research (all play and Ad-infinitum stretches into ad-nauseam
no work is not multitasking after all, yes?) and possibly an occasional Excel But now gone forever, never to return...
Pins prick my maze-arm in numbing pain
spreadsheet of committee budget figures thrown in. There stands precariously,
These days the drifting general opinion is that there is no place for The sky looks darker, the ground feels harder
The nameless places, the faceless people Another morphed me,
a Dust Particle with no concrete plan for the future. If a Dust Particle doesn’t
know which one of the ancient colonies it wants to join and doesn’t really care Like ink spreading on paper City-cynical
about how much beings sneeze as a result of colony discovery, then that Dust Like flooding water eating up villages and towns Paltry-pessimistic
Particle is truly aimless. I ask you, isn’t that a gloomy drift? While the newer Like a world gone wrong all at once... Filter-feelingless.
generations have new hangouts, novel ideas of what is fun, much more exposure Madness.
and a lot more multicultural insight they still zealously hold on to the same old
ideas of what a fulfilling life is all about. From generation to generation, I’m complacent
through thorough Brownian socialization, the meaning of success has held fast The looted rations, the smuggled drugs
the corroding monuments, the collapsing concrete A schizophrenic
to its roots. Killjoy as it seems, it keeps happening and most of the time no
Dust Particle even bothers to change the drift. It’s not that terribly difficult to the dying soldiers, the orphaned children... Divided, multiplied, magnified
start a new drift is it? I could be mistaken. In a place like NLS though there Into colourful, precise
seems a good probability of starting something new. There are so many laptops Stop. Dice-squares
to see the world through. There are new books to coming in often to in which That alternately acknowledge and ignore each other
to take a break in. In the holidays, the laptops and mobile phones go all over the As chaos crumbles into kitsch
Think of that girl.
country, providing hordes of new opportunities. Call me an Optimist2 but I I watch, with clairvoyant clarity
think new notions of what a Dust Particle can and should do and how flexible The hurt, the shame, the guilt.
Let it eat you from inside. My 50th monozygotic twin
to be may emerge sooner than later. The silent observer.
I need to think about this a little more. The possibilities are many, I look you in the eye, I dare you to knock me down.
don’t you think? I shall move on to a quite corner of a leaf under a mushroom I was there.
outside the library. It’s kind of a nice place to sit and ponder a while. I found my place in anarchy.
Till later, Amigos. Adios! Ashmi Ahluwalia
PRIYADARSHINI KEDLAYA
1 Bumping into each other, exchanging information and often changing course as a result.
2 A rather unfashionable dying breed, I am told by the Realists. EASHAN GHOSH
Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore 2

My WAY
WAY in
I’m 22 and it took me that long to decide that I was tired of merely ‘passing through’ in
laconic inertia. I mean, if we’re playing the play, let’s add some thick dialogue, what say? And
perhaps, just perhaps, we can think over whether we want to write a better (meaningful/
intelligent/progressive/explosive/rational/happy/anything-but-this-status-quoist-bullshit-
please/educative) script and a happier ending.
My demon (the real subject of this exorcizing piece) has been alluded to across these pages
earlier – Satyajit’s lament of the literary (im)balance that skewed university settings perpetuate
(Satyajit Sarna, ‘A Hastily-Written Pompous Piece Telling People What to Do’, Quirk,
January 2005, pp. 1-2); Dorian’s damning indictment – ‘There is a culture of complicity at
the law school that I have yet to comprehend’ (Dorian Persaud, ‘My Experience’, Quirk,
January 2005, p. 7); Aju and Raghu’s brutal appraisals of indifference in college communities
(Aju John, ‘Kerosene in the Water Tank’, Quirk, March-April 2005, p. 1; Raghu S, ‘The
Indifferent College Student’, Quirk, March-April 2005, p. 1); and Sagar’s musing over fuzzy
cosmic imbalances that some universities/students face (Arun Sagar, ‘On Leaving Law School’,
Quirk, March-April 2005, p. 6). I’m willing to wager my precious locks that most would
agree – Indian university education isn’t perfect. No Sireeee, not by a long way. The question
of whether things need to change, funnily enough, is not the flavour of the month.
aN A r c h Y
present particular karmic balance of things – that this thingamajig is to no one’s gain - that
would be too screwy
Are you familiar with our Q & A’s?
Question
Question: “Sir, many parents and students are concerned about the quality of some of the
courses – would it be possible for us to think over how we could improve things?”
Answer
Answer: “Get off my trip young lady! ‘improve things’ eh? That’s rich! Ha ha ha. This is how
things have been and this is how they’re always going to be. Comprende senorita?”
Question
Question: “And finally, I wanted to know from the class as to how you’re going to utilize the
lessons from this course in your coming years.”
Answer
Answer:[from somewhere in the middle of the last row] [at a calibrated volume just inaudible
to the good professor, but crystal clear to everyone else in the room] “Mr. Joker Sir. Don’tcha
ever get it? We ain’t got a word of your frequency.”
There. Some are obviously comfortable. The status quo is OK for some. Way too much effort
to change things around here for most. And at the end of the day, things will always get by
get by
(work out/get by/happen/exist). They always do. Yeah?

“Why?”
Anarchy’s point is that most of us don’t really give one flying ____ [emphasis mine] about
what’s perfect and what’s not. Consequently, most of us don’t really give one flying ____
[emphasis mine] about change for good or bad. Faculty, students, alumni, administrative
staff, patrons, governments – we’re all in the dock in our pretty little boats.
“Idealism is for kooks. There’s lotsa less lofty things to worry about, boy.”
That worries me. I wonder - if not you and me and us, then who the ___ [emphasis mine] is
going to look out for the larger picture? Forget perfection – will we ever take off the blooming
blinders and give the big bad university world a real look?
Ragging, university violence and crime, inadequate facilities, incompetent faculty, disinterested
students, disinterested faculty, race discrimination, caste discrimination, nationality
discrimination, flawed admissions, appropriated scholarships, legitimized intellectual
plagiarism, campus hate speech, alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual harassment, mal-
administration, financial irregularities, hyper-competition, wasted expenditure, poor health,
poor education, possibly-very-messed-up-formative-years; the symptoms of a deadly malaise
are evident in some shape or form in most universities. Don’t you see it?
“The lyrics were deranged – madness. They were everywhere – trippy - screwy – screwy:
A library crashes, a ranking slips.
‘Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Why?’
No other questions asked, none.
Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Why not?
The paper leaks, merit has absconded
‘Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Why?’
Well, who really gets ‘educated’ in colleges today?
Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Why not?”
Things are obviously very screwy. Screwy and as obvious as Murakami’s vanishing elephant in
your and my ballroom. Funny thing really, that not many give two hoots. Funny, ain’t it?
“At least it’s not in the bedroom”, she placidly pouted as she polished her fingernails
under Jumbo’s watchful eye.
An Excerpt from Galle Face Diaries: The Story of Tihai (thirty)
He was thirsty. The sea roared pleasantly in the backdrop. Galle Face was festooned
with lights and kites and families and lovers and Colombo’s history and little colourful
shacks like the one they now approached. There was no one behind the counter – until,
out of nowhere, a lil imp of a girl – no more than 6 or 7 – came hopping over. He asked
for a Coke and she slowly went about getting it for him, never for a moment taking her
eyes off the delicate bird-shaped kite in the sky tethered to the ice cream stick in her
hand.
He sipped the Coke, and asked her: “Kiyada?” – his sole Sinhalese equivalent for ‘how
much?’
“Tihai” she shot back, her eyes narrowing as a green kite meandered dangerously close
to her bird beauty.
“Kiyada?” - he countered, hoping for some comprehendible clue.
“TI – HA – EEE” she wailed, darting him a look of pained irritation.
The sea rolled. The lights shined. The air was heavy.
He tried everything.
“Kiyada – How much?”
“Tihai”
He raised one finger, then two, then three – “Kiyada?”
“ Tihai ”
He made some impromptu dumb charades motions – money, question mark, upturned
thumb – “Kiyada?”
“ Tihai ”
He took out a ten rupee note, then a twenty rupee note, and finally a fifty rupee note
– “Kiyada?” he pleaded.
“Tihai! Tiha! Tihai! “ – she didn’t relent. She plucked every now and again at the string
trailing into the sky.
The sea roared. They stood frozen.
He - a helpless bemused recitation of “Kiyada”.
She - an unassailable repetition of “Tihai” (her eyes never off her hopping kite).
They were speaking the same language but weren’t really talking.
He turned to look for someone to help translate.
I guess, sometimes we just have to let go, give up nay give out, relax, tell each other – “It
would make me happy if you helped” and live new. Happy.
“That’s insane talk man. Pure anarchy nonsense.”

That worries me too. Yeah. My Way in Anarchy

So, what could the deal be? Some people must be happy with things that seemed messed up
to most. Right? Please please don’t tell me that no one’s really happy with this scene – this ABHAYRAJ NAIK

M
MYY EEXXPPEERRI IMMEENNTTSS WWI ITTHH AANNAARRCCHHYY
[This is an extract from some of the earliest writings of Mahatma
Varukeri, the father of our autocracy. Ever child knows of his
role in overthrowing anarchy and building this great society.
However, little do we know about his initial struggles and
search of the self in what was anarchist madness. While his
mode of protest and principles of truth and violence are long
celebrated, we must not forget the legacy of indulgence that he
pioneered for us. The following paragraphs are an extract from
his dairy entries now published by the History Society of India.
The discontent with the prevalent lifestyle and system is evident
in every letter of every word.]
January 9th, 2016. 1000 Hrs:
Morning.
The day began with water thrown on my face snazzy. Its just
a naked feet’s distance, the first score of the day. Nicely
rolled into rose-petalled sweet pan which I chewed all the
way back to the hazy mirror stuck above my brushing sink.
The old lady had put yesterday’s ‘rotis’ on the pan and was
making loud noises my way. It could have been butter on
fresh ‘parathas’ that drove the madness. Was my misfortune
breakfast felt like last night’s leftovers. The stuff really got
me on though. Must have been why I joined the drug party.
The deaf lady’s stale breakfasts which have blunted the
canines of my neighbour’s stray.
January 11th, 2016. 1430 Hrs:
Lust
And yeah the neighbour. Or rather, his teen daughter whose
nipples are farther inside her cotton than lips from crazy
grandma’s tongue wag. My thick appreciation for her slim
lines yet to persuade nasty ink to work on paper jazzy. Well,
now that I look out the window in ‘Padosan’ lyrics, she’s
bending down stretching to get some more of those lines
drawn around her. Only going to be a matter of time before
her father’s neck hangs from the chimney unless he leases
her out goodly neighbourly. A nice rosy mark around his
cheeky would be quite pleasurable in the earnest.
January 11th, 2016. 1200 Hrs:
Apathy
These drunkards should stop breathing on the damn public
pathway. The lane behind my street where no cars travel,
God! No drunkard should die there. The old man who sells
shoelaces just did that damn thing. He breathed alcohol all
his life and now breathes maggots. Damn people just leave
him there till the stink gets into their cooking and flies fall
into their coffee. The kiddies tore his shirt off to see his
burly white chest and the funny yellow hair. And there lay
he bare-topped and mouth open. The rain pouring those
yellow teeth white, his momma would have been proud. The
old lady behind complained now and then that somebody
would trip on those rat-nibbled ankle stumps lest somebody
comes along and does the needful.
Took a damn bike rider’s trip to hospital after ramping up the
old man’s skull to push the peeps around into social service.
January 12th, 2016, 1900 Hrs:
The Inspiration
Once I remember as a kid, I used to do these funny things.
Was hanging from a tree once and picking on passing girls. If
I reached down low enough and vishied their bottoms, they
would give me one of those flowers stuck up in the hair. I
did make a fortune selling them smart in the evening
madness. Did feel very philosophical going home with money
in my pocket and a stiffy otherwise. Late that day I put ink
on paper rushy and began this doodling habit of mine
unmindful t’was no inspiration without the dizzying stuff
that artists do. Now me assumes myself as artist inspired like
none other and does all that too. But hanging from a tree
did get me going, though sex is another thing. Philosophy
has no reason. It only sings to every nasty vacuum that forms
in the idle head. A little druginess does bring it out nasty
though. ‘Cos that feeds on vacuums too.
January 18th, 2016. 2335 Hrs.
The Compromise
Did hire this hand. Girl not very older than the neighbour’s
dog. Fried the same stale shit all the time and threw it on
the half washed sticky platter. And to think mom got a rest!
This young thing didn’t do two dimes without half a slap. I
was too drugged most of the times to find her slippery cheek.
This other neighbour of mine has a thing for violence. Gets
himself going only after a nice fit. Now I pay him two dimes
for his entertainment and sometimes the food isn’t stale
either. That crazy haired limp across the street came and
tried leaving the little girl here on the doormat. Said she’s
mine. If I ever did sleep with the crazy haired woman, it
couldn’t have been more than that – close my eyes and sleep.
I know for sure ‘cos if I did more than that to that woman
with the crazy hair, the lice would have gotten to my
moustache by now. Now I don’t really care, pay the girl a bit
to take back to the limp. That way my mother doesn’t have to
bother about lice or grandchildren and the crazy haired thing
wont come knocking making any noise.
February 7th, 2016. 0200 Hrs.
The Intellectual
Trying hard to get drunk enough to review this great
anarchist writer Chauhan’s book. Guy doesn’t believe in
grammar. Think it’s a crazy power construct or something.
Either he isn’t drinking enough or fell while hanging from
the tree. The words are arranged like my grandpa’s teeth.
With the odd ones missing between the funny shaped ones.
Can’t make a peacock’s shit out of this, for example:
“Today’s special dog and roach curry. Flavour good but taste
not spicy. So I added a little own blood for tangy nutrition.
Girl in house liked. After that I had sex with man who
comes to play chess. Was boring. He doesn’t scream…………”
Now this is part of the jazzy book he is writing. Now as I
have already said, nobody gives a peacock shit about it. Cos
they’re gonna make up their frail opinions based on the crap
that I’m gonna make of it. So to cover ass from this
magnanimous burden, I ring this old man up and bark a
question mark into the magnet. He tells me thus:
“The observations of Sudarshan (1978) and Paedophil (2022) in
this regard provide some illumination regarding the soothing
effects of sensitizational initiatives that cut across grammatical
extremes and provide for a more sinister construction of
dominant medico-structural themes………”
The alcohol was surely rocking. Into the old haggard’s ears did
I spit out a few words I had heard my father apparent use
with mom when I was just a kid. Then I let my mind go chill
on holiday. This review could be written with a keyboard and
my father’s tongue.
February 9th, 2016. 0030 Hrs.
The Leader
While I am nutsy drowned in druggy dreams and riding on my
rushy pen, my sickly head thirsts for the rules. Want to see
quicky these dimwits controlled by remotes. Grammar lies
forgotten today and peacock shit sells like cakes. My daughter
was born to a crazy lice farm. And dead men stay out in the
rain. There is only stale food to eat. And disgustingly boring
things to think about. I am too doped to protest. But
protest isn’t far far away. All you half dumb no-gooders rise!
Build up powerful elite and command the forces of time! Only
way out lest my Anthony Burgess feel betrayed unforgiving by
this scribble.
S UHAS B ALIGA
suhasbaliga@gmail.com
NATIONAL LAW SCHOOL OF INDIA UNIVERSITY
3 Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore
The Imaginary Death Of A Fictional Humorist
He ran sweat-drenched in the cool, dark July
night; not-knowing-neither-caring when the
slippers slithered off. The stinging gravel did
not slow him; the certainty that the railway
track stretched on endlessly offered vague
comfort. It was the only way to find his way
in the black darkness. Had dawn brought with
it the familiarity of sight, Rajan may have
noticed blood gurgling from his feet. As it
were, a distant red railway signal provided
questionable light. The sharp and rusty nut
had been left far behind and Rajan Varghese
did not need to/could not afford to look back.
His college, and the warmth he felt on the
brightly lit stage seemed centuries ago. He
continued to run. His soles slapped gravel
and the moon remained hidden.
The sounds of the night though, brought him
the complete true story: With all else still,
behind him were the screech of whistles and
the hurried scrape of boot on gravel. Had he
looked back, he might have seen ten torches
blazing their way towards him, less than a
kilometre away, fireflies-on-a-mission: the
law’s long arm.
It has been suggested in the past - and I
endorse the belief too - that Rajan had initially
planned for an escape on the Madras Mail.
Since the afternoon, he had miraculously
evaded (outrun and outfoxed, with little
expertise in these matters) more than a few
men in khaki. At Kollam Railway Station
though, a new set of policemen watched in
open-mouthed incredulity as Rajan fled again.
He was spotted on the first platform, in the
same set of clothes – the mud still fresh on
his crisp dhoti, with the same thin moustache
and thick curly hair. Eyewitnesses still repeat
in awe that Rajan showed no sign of exhaustion.
He ran across the platform - clearing stacks
of jute-packed cargo in graceful leaps,
weaving through crowds and tearful goodbyes,
jumped on to the tracks and started sprinting.
Was it destined to end this way? At the
funeral, it was hard to miss the unmistakably
pungent odour of horoscopic didn’t-I-tell-
you. Mariakkutty still lived and cried
resigned, silent tears at the closed coffin. How
could he do it to his mother? She who
conditioned -– no, trained him, to sit quiet
and not make a sound. What good is freedom
when you are dead, some asked and sighed in
sorrow. And as the men carried him away
through the heartbreaking wails of women,
Rev. Mathew Kurien sang in his deep rumble–
“Zion sailor journeying across,
Don’t let the waves scare you.
He controls the sea and the wind,
And is beside you.”
Why did Rajan choose the tracks? Of many
possible escape routes, the tracks offered the
least possibility of escape. Decades after the
remains of Rajan Varghese turned up bloated,
naked and putrid at a Varkala beach, this
point would continue to be debated.
The symbolism associated with Rajan’s death
filled the underground news of the day,
attempting to explain how the chosen tracks
took him full circle. These theories never came
close to an understanding of Rajan’s death
(or life) or his choice of escape routes. More
recent works (with claims to greater academic
rigour) attributed Rajan’s parabolic leap from
the platform onto the tracks to a deeply-felt
obligation to defiantly mock the repressive
regime. (See Gopalan Nair et. al., A History
of the Emergency in Kerala where the authors
have used eyewitness accounts to stress the
point.) However, those who knew him best
doubt such intent ever having crystallized in
Rajan’s head. To them, Rajan could never have
been a Naxalite; some people are just not
made so.
I propose a simpler theory: he just wanted to
see Mariakkutty. And, therefore, the tracks:
the quickest ways home, almost as the crow
flies.
Sometime during the chase – he didn’t know
how long he had been running - Rajan felt
the arrival of a train before he saw it. And
when the powerful beam cut through the
blackness and traced a curvature, he realized
that the train was on a parallel track. As the
steam and the noise made its way towards
him, he turned to his left and in the darkness
saw the outline of dark treetops against the
perceptibly lighter night sky. And as the
engine drew even closer, he dived and his tired
arms sank into more gravel as he rolled down
an incline. Getting up to run again, his
destination clear but path invisible, he looked
at the night sky.
Rajan was born in legendary fashion at Seventh
Day Adventist Hospital, Kollam. His entry in
to the world is a story that stretches belief, its
veracity is suspect: and therefore its
classification as legend. For the first time
perhaps in human history, a woman gave
painless birth. At the appointed hour, Rajan
slithered out of Mariakkutty’s womb and she
didn’t feel a thing. Dr. Nambiar, with his
Edinburgh FRCS, could not explain it. Had it
not been for the alert Nurse Ramani, Rajan’s
first slide could also have been his last. She
caught him centimetres off the earth. As it
turned out, Rajan would make many more
stunning entrances – accompanied by music
and thunderous applause.
And scarcely had this miracle happened when
another happened. Mariakkutty was staring
in disbelief at the tiny wet thing between her
legs, dangling from a nurse’s arms; waiting
for him to cry. He didn’t. He sputtered,
coughed and started giggling. Clearly, he was
born to laugh and make others laugh; and
the recognition of the fact wasn’t long in
coming. The baby was a huge draw at the
hospital. Doctors and countless nurses
crowded that maternity ward echoing with
chuckles, giggles and guffaws. The razor wit
and sensational comic timing were already
apparent. Mariakkutty could barely keep
herself from laughing when she breastfed him.
When he stared at her, his jaws clamped tight
at her nipple, she had to smile, and then laugh.
In school, he was a star draw on Annual Days,
where he ruled the stage and commandeered
the lights and music to let him stay on
forever. He was less than ten when he would
thus engage primarily adult crowds with his
social satire. At eight, he was a practiced
exponent of what is popularly called the
parody. Borrowing tunes and music from the
film and theatre music of the day (for Rajan
never claimed to be much of a musician
himself though he could sing tolerably), he
would insert his lyrics to keep an audience in
splits for hours with acidic satire.
What made Rajan so endearing was that he
was so obviously a child. Singing about the
things that he noticed, the parish priest and
the panchayat president were rarely spared.
The newspapers and their issues did not
interest him.
No description of Rajan’s formative years
would be complete without a mention of his
craving for the limelight. He would not be
sidelined into any periphery. And since he
always managed to keep an audience
enraptured, unlucky performers have had to
wait hours before they got truncated time on
stage. For a while, it seemed as if Rajan needed
narcotic adulation to get on with life. After
Chacko’s disappearance from Revolution and
the forests, when Rajan was pushed into his
ten-year-cocoon, this perception was proved
entirely untrue. He was thirteen when
Mariakkutty declared: whatever may come,
everything else be damned, I am not going
to lose another man because look at what
Chacko has gone and done.
Which brings us to Chacko. When Rajan was
five, his elder brother, Chacko ran away from
home in the company of a travelling troupe
of performers. The motorcycle-riding-bear
and the hoops of fire ignited the coals of
wanderlust. In five years, Chacko Varghese
surfaced in various places in Kochi and Calicut
as Che Varghese – a seventeen year old
incendiary. Mariakkutty had been widowed
more than ten years when this transformation
of her eldest son was complete. Messianic for
many, he was the Antichrist for an equal
number. At twenty, Chacko’s reputation as
complete outlaw and stunning guerilla
tactician was unmatched. He left behind him
a trail of orphans, blood and headless corpses,
and Brahmin landlords throughout Central
Kerala lived in his towering shadow.
Then all of a sudden, he disappeared. Nothing
was ever heard from Chacko again.
Mariakkutty’s heart broke a second time.
There was no certain manner in which
Mariakkutty could have known when and
where Chacko had disappeared. All the murk
and suspicion that surrounded Chacko’s life
and thereafter; began to clear only several
years after Mariakkutty’s death. Even now,
almost thirty years since anyone heard from
Chacko, the facts are far from certain. Stories
of pitiful screams and two gunshots from a
police station on top of a lonely hill are
repeatedly retold. Constable Yohannan’s
suicide note, composed a few days after
Chacko’s disappearance, and an
indecipherable letter for Mariakkutty, are all
we now have to reconstruct Chacko’s final
hours.
Embers of doubt glow on. Screams. Two
gunshots that still resound. A police station
upon a lonely hill. No bodies. No witnesses
save a dead constable.
It does not explain his death, that’s for certain.
But the life and death of Chacko do provide
some clues to understand Rajan’s fierce will
to live on for a while more. It certainly explains
Mariakkutty’s craftsmanship of Rajan’s teen
years. You see, Chacko’s absence was defining
of Rajan - a Sole Surviving Male.
Mariakkutty continued to run the house and
its sprawling agricultural premises with
characteristic dignity and a lot of pride,
profiting from lifelong thrift. She still went to
church, every Sunday, carrying a black Bible
and a black umbrella – the nature of the
weather notwithstanding. The difference was
that after the disappearance of her firstborn,
church came to occupy the extent of her social
life. It was the only reason to step out of the
gates. Three hours every Sunday morning.
Starting from the house at six, she would sit
at her husband’s grave from half past six until
half past seven. The graveyard was a stretch of
land sloping down from behind the church.
When the bells reverberated across the hills,
she would walk up the slope and seat herself
on the front row. After church, she would
exchange pleasantries with the Vicar and his
family, chat with some friends – or not,
sometimes - and then return home. On the
way back, she would purchase beef, fish and a
few vegetables to last the week. Otherwise,
the household was self-sufficient. The grounds
housed coconut, banana, tapioca, cashew,
mango, jackfruit, pepper, hens and ducks.
The paddy field - just a half mile away, if you
walked along the canal, gave enough to last
the year and some profit.
One dew-wet December morning, the church
premises were covered with grass of a green
to soothe. Varghese’s grave was at the bottom
of the slope, under an old mango tree.
Mariakkutty had drawn her sari over her head
and was sitting beside the grave, the sun just
beginning to make its presence felt. She closed
her eyes and after much trepidation and
clearing of the throat, briefly narrated her
plan. Their son would stay home and not go
to school. She would get him tutored at home.
His presence outside the house would be
regulated. Then, as if she sensed some
disapproval, she looked down at her feet and
said it had to be that way because, look-what-
our-Chacko-has-gone-and-done.
There are many who wonder how a strong
individual like Rajan was agreeable to
Mariakkutty’s idea. I’d like to remind them
we are talking of a thirteen year old child,
here. What is more, he had an elder brother
who was almost never there and a father who
died before he was even born. Wouldn’t he
have been wet clay in Mariakkutty’s firm
hands?
And thus, Rajan entered another phase of his
life. The smiles left his face and the laughter
left him. The darkness of the house enveloped
him completely. Just as laughter left Rajan
never to come back, light and liveliness
escaped the house and its sprawling grounds.
It was almost permanently dark though not
very obviously so. And in this darkness, a
soul wandered – hiding his purposelessness.
The tutor once remarked very mysteriously,
that the darkness wasn’t in the house, it was
in the inmates. Rajan stayed cocooned in the
house for ten years, away from all the light
and adulation. Unsurprisingly, he gained the
ability to melt into the background and
shadow of any frame he was in. He became
darkness and the darkness became him. On
many occasions, it was only when she felt his
clammy cold-blooded touch, that
Mariakutty was aware of his presence near
her. The change was so rapid it almost went
unnoticed; manifest only in Rajan’s eyes.
Those black eyes seemed to shimmer,
becoming brilliant orbs, hiding a fire that
flashed on for several years – never completely
doused as events would prove. And in that
house of memories, in the company of
creatures who lived in the shadows, Rajan grew
into pale thin youth.
Occasionally, Mariakkuty would see Rajan
smiling to himself in the dark. Overt
expressions of humour had clearly left him.
Whatever remained would gently break upon
his face in a sporadic smile – his eyes glinting
feverishly; and Mariakkutty would be filled
with a wistful regret.
Rajan was soon on the tiled roof of his
cowshed, watching his mother for the last
time. A jeep was parked next to the shed.
Phat, phat, phat.
Inspector Minnal Thomman. Lightning
Thomman. Sub-Inspector of Police; his wide
sunglasses reflected the naked light bulb
hanging over Mariakkutty’s head. She was
weeping and looked very old. Thomman was
carrying a polished three-foot wooden stick
with steel caps at either end – the ostensible
symbol of seniority; and whacking his left
palm. Phat. Boot to hat, in complete uniform.
Phat.
You whore, you know where he is. If you want
to see him alive again better tell us where he
is hiding.
Ayyo, sir, please don’t hurt him. He is an
innocent child. My only child, sir! I don’t
know where he is. Please don’t hurt him.
You won’t tell us? Phat.
Sir, if I knew, I would have told you, he is my
only boy. Sir, you know what happened to
my Chacko. Rajan is all I have. He is not like
Chacko, he doesn’t even talk to anyone.
Thomman grabbed Mariakkutty’s hair. She
screamed. Rajan cringed on a cowshed roof
as his limbs gave way in a horrible stench of
fear that overpowered any love for his mother.
You know where he is. He won’t go anywhere
without telling you. Tell me, where is he?
Thomman swung the stick down and brought
it up against her stomach and she fell limp to
the ground. Rajan shut his eyes. Phat.
Now to piece together the rest of the jigsaw.
Having spent many years in the company of
shadows, how did Rajan find himself on the
stage again?
The Chief had arrived in a white Ambassador.
Two police jeeps and two other Ambassadors
followed. The jeep that led the entourage
- AJU JOHN
screeched into a puddle, painting walls and
dhotis brown. The Chief walked out of the car
that said “Kerala State 2”, into an umbrella
held up by the Principal. Everyone smiled
broadly at everyone else. The Chief hitched
up his dhoti by centimeters to avoid the slush.
Many fluorescent tube lamps lit up the fat
raindrops and the broad smiles. Rajan was
standing behind the Principal. Introductions
were made. Handshakes, namaskaarams,
howdoyoudos exchanged and photographs
taken.
Sometime close to the tenth anniversary of
Chacko’s disappearance, Mariakkutty came
to notice strange changes in Rajan. His
occasional smiles had turned into full blown
guffaws. His throaty laugh would reverberate
in the darkness. Instead of merging into the
shadows, Rajan began walking around the
house singing and delivering his punchlines.
Mariakkutty’s amusement, however, was
always clouded with concern for her son’s
sanity. She consulted Varghese again, sitting
at the foot of his grave for over three hours on
a warm August afternoon; and decided that
Rajan had to join college.
College was initially unfriendly. The gleaming
eyes and manic laughter kept people away.
But he survived, pouring himself into books
and work. Soon, almost everyone noticed the
shy, thin, curly-haired man with a reputation
for rare and surprising injections of crazy
humour. He would labour endlessly at the
labs and then volunteer his services to
professors, lab-assistants, friends, seniors and
the church. He even found time for books
and poetry. Through the year he was seen
striding purposefully through the corridors
at all kinds of odd hours. At church, he
galvanized enough support to organize a series
of highly successful camps where medical help
was given free of cost.
His various interactions slowly eased him back
into the din of human society. Talkativeness
returned slowly, and so did the ready smile.
He even began seeking out company and this
time, it was forthcoming.
By the time Rajan was in his third year, he
was popular enough to become an automatic
choice for Arts Club Secretary. It was the only
post in the Union over which neither political
party fielded candidates. Every other seat was
battled with gloves off. Opposing Rajan was a
risk none would take.
His silk shirt was new: purchased by
Mariakkutty for this very occasion. The dhoti
was much older. She had given it to him on
his First Holy Communion. Like all good
dhotis, it shone every time it was ironed.
He had to welcome and introduce the Chief –
him who needed little introduction. It was his
first official duty as Secretary. And the stage
would be his for two minutes.
The stage was lit with many lamps. The band
had just wrapped up its sound and fury. It was
Rajan’s turn now. The Chief smiled on as Rajan
walked up to the mike and blew lightly into
it. The echo resounded across the auditorium
as he watched faces in the crowd through the
glare of lights, (some eager, some excited,
some bored, some known, many unknown).
And then, it was as if a dam had finally burst
(under the weight of bright lamps and
audience expectation, not to mention his
return to society). The grim, silent landscape
was flooded with a brazen humour.
Completely transported to a previous life, he
gave a performance to end all performances.
Different versions exist as to what he actually
said/sang. It is also not clear how long Rajan
was on stage before he began comprehending
the kind of trouble he was in. The truth lies
captured in a smokescreen of myth and
counter-intelligence. But by the time he ran
and jumped off the stage, the fire in his eyes
was little more than a few embers.
It attracted the Chief’s ire, enough to
momentarily erase the constant wide grin.
On March 1 st , 1976, Rajan’s barely
recognizable corpse washed up on a deserted
beach. He was covered in cigarette burns.
Following a huge outcry, the Chief had to
resign. Since then, the Chief has resigned
many times from many positions.
Details about Camp Pulikkad came to light
much later. It is believed in some circles that
Rajan could have been held there for up to
three days. The inmates were all young – and
therefore possibly Naxalite too. One of them
wrote,
Lightning struck me one day,
When I was in Pulikkad.
Lightning was a ball-point-pen
Jabbed into pliant thigh muscle
Flattened out by rollers,
When I was in Pulikkad.
Minnal (Lightning) Thomman S.I., ended his
career many years later as a Dy.
Superintendent of Police.
Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore 4

There was once a Prince. His name was Marigold Bumbledikoondu and just as two cups of

happinesses
water are enough to drown a baby gnu, he hailed from southern Zambia, but naturally from a
parallel universe.

Prince Marigold had a normal prince childhood, complete with equestrian training, archery,
etiquette lessons, spellings, slaughtering of innocents, sacrificial procedures etc. However, he
also learnt a secret art. A dark art. He learnt all this from his dark master, Master Mas Ter.
The most difficult moments are moments of happiness. Do I really deserve this?
Am I feeling happiness disproportionate to the cause of happiness? Am I feeling
Master Mas Ter (pronounced with a soft gap between Mas and Ter) taught the young Prince,
happiness disproportionate to other sources of trouble in my life? Should I also not
the art of developing film from a camera. Hence, the weak ‘dark art’ pun in the beginning. But
feel a little sad for other people who don’t have reason to be happy right now? Will
its ok if you missed it, since you are all puslings.
my happiness last long enough? Are other people jealous of my happiness?
The young Prince soon became a proficient developer and sought a secret desire to join the
And there are varying degrees of happiness; ‘celebration’ happiness, ‘relative’
Ansals. He sent several letters desirous of a strategic alliance with the renowned group, and
happiness, ‘relief’ happiness, ‘doubtful’ happiness, ‘vengeful’ happiness. ‘Relief’
when there was no reply, he at once caused the sacrifice of three hundred wild
happiness is the best of them all. It usually comes after a long spell of anxiety,
dunkleberry beetles. All to no avail.
uncertainty, fear- like when you are expecting to get sacked, and you don’t. The
happiness at fear being dispelled is inescapable, no one can take that away from
One of his Courtiers, called Babu, revealed to him that the Ansals were actually a construction
you, and you enjoy it more because concomitantly the earlier source of trouble
company and not ‘developers’ as in ‘film developers’. The Prince rapidly understood that his
disappears. ‘Relative’ happiness keeps you on your toes. If you get a small raise,
secret desire was stupid, and this fact, multiplied with the fact that he repeatedly fell off his
you feel happy and at the same time you are not jubilant enough to blow it all up, as
horse called ‘The African Road Warrieress’ led him down a wild and uncharted path, until he
you know your expenses are high enough to eat it all up. ‘Celebration’ happiness is
occupied the royal suite of the Southern Zambian FunHouse. Complete with a new white dinner
the worst kind. When you get a promotion that you were not expecting, you are
jacket.
jubilant, you throw a party that is way beyond the strength of your purse. All the
while you keep wondering if it’s really true, and if your close competitor is going to
Its previous occupant had been his late great grandfather, known as King Marigold The Line
make trouble from now on. Then you wake up in the morning with a hangover and
Filler. He had apparently gone mad trying to colour in all the zebras he could find.
feel terrible and wonder if it was really worth that much celebration. ‘Doubtful’
happiness is that of the other guy if you did not get promotion. If both of you didn’t
He hadn’t counted on his evil Queen, Queen Hosram The Detergent Lady, who was just as
get it…should he feel happy that you didn’t get it? Maybe not. But he would definitely
efficient at spraying detergent on unicoloured zebras.
feel assured that at least status quo is going to be restored for some time. He would
be happy that that would give him more time to chalk out another game plan.
In any event, the Prince Marigold we are concerned with, was soon reduced to a wreck. Now
Meanwhile, he would keep wondering if you were feeling like him, and whether his
those of you with an air for adventure, and an air for romance will nod wisely as into the story
happiness is really misplaced. ‘Vengeful’ happiness is that of the other guy if he
is introduced the beautiful and highly talented Princess Rampyari Sadulepatri who hailed from a
got the promotion over you, while you were the foremost contender all through. Then
neighbouring kingdom. She had heard about the dunkleberry beetles, and had been touched by
he would feel happier that you did not get it when you were expected to get it.
the gesture.
Maybe I should write a self-help book someday, and make a quick buck. At some
Princess Rampyari took one look at the Prince through double glazed windows, and sighed. She
points, it makes sense to give up one’s artistic arrogance.
knew she had found a cause. She would help him regain his lost glory, she would bring him
back to the world of the sane, she would stand firmly in front of the cameras and announce, “I
So right now I am experiencing ‘relief’ happiness. Deep called from I-don’t-know-
give to you ... the rejuvenated Prince Marigold Bumbledikoondu.”
where to check if I were all right. After two months of no communication. I had
begun to believe that this was over. But apparently it is not. So that is my source of
But then, Prince Marigold choked on a buckle, had a massive brain embolism, and died.
happiness - at least he called. At least, I don’t have to scrounge in this vacuum of
uncertainty trying to figure out if mine was a legitimate fear. Well, it isn’t. And that
Where he lay, gasping for his last breath, now stands as per his will written in soya sauce, a
is a relief. And a cause of happiness.
giant phallic representation, with a roll of film at the top.
As I put my cell-phone back with the charger, I hear suppressed orgasmic breathing
Forever, exposed.
and a table being pushed on the other side of the screen, which divides this room
into office and private space. I inhabit this private space for the time I am here for
Alas, that brave, but very mad Prince Marigold.
the campaign for unpolluted water. The office space is used by the Mahila
Sangathan, which doubles up as a legal services centre…by day. By night, it is the SHRI SINGH
site of consummation of true love. The hero is the local photographer and the
heroine is the local Cleopatra. By day, one is colleague, and by night, lover.

SOLITUDE
It is an intriguing duality of roles that these lovers play with society. Of
unquestioning acceptance of its norms, all the while guiltlessly subverting its basic
moral code in the darkness of anonymity. It is alright, I suppose, if one is in love,
and that sort of thing. She is the typist at the Mahila Sangathan office, besides
being bread-earner for two siblings and an uncle, and the local Cleopatra. He is a I leap into oblivion...
photographer with papery side-locks, pointy boots, bottom-hugging jeans; of
unknown marital status and Pagan religion. Such is the story of True Love. The story
of duality.
Gently I glide through the world around me, suddenly
I am the educated friend-and-well-wisher from the city, with cropped hair, junky experiencing sensory deprivation. No sound, no touch
silver earrings, cigarette smoke and emancipation. Who does not evoke suspicious and only a dim aquamarine light to keep me company.
curiosity anymore, as the degree of muck in one’s drinking water depends on how Languidly I move through space. It’s a beautiful
loud I shout in the chemical factory and in government offices. So I am the revered feeling, a feeling of being suspended in space. It
messiah-woman from the city. Men don’t stare through my transparent white kurta isn’t quite flight, but gravity doesn’t seem to be a
anymore. Women don’t shy away from inviting me over for dinner. Wives don’t factor anymore.
chaperone their husbands when they come to the office. Teachers ask me for tips on
how to teach English better. Collectors apologise for poor spoken English. Cleopatra
counsels me on the nexus between long, lustrous hair and faithful husbands. Local
My inner-child wakes up after a self-imposed
Photographer cracks jokes about local editors wanting dharnas to be shot only if
urban messiah-women are in the forefront.
sabbatical. I haven’t allowed myself to be free in
such a long time. And so I smile, I glide and I lay
Cleopatra brings me food at night, after settling a cantankerous uncle in bed. She there suspended... both in mind and in body. My world
offers to keep me company so I don’t feel scared at night. She plays with my cell sudden seems to have taken to a free flowing lethargy,
phone, asks me about my family and why they have not got me married yet, slow motion redefined. My thoughts which are usually a
counsels me on the benefits of long, lustrous hair. By then the photographer comes whizzing blur, sudden crystallize and move by me in an
to ask me how I am getting along and if I have finished dinner. That is the signal for almost slide show like manner. Clarity, aquamarine
me to retire for the day on the other side of the screen. Then I wait for Deep to call, clarity, where have you been?
and listen in to hushed love-talk against the kitchen wall. Suppressed giggles. Then
lights go off. And I wait for Deep to call.

This is my way of squeezing out breathing space. Coming away from the city. The answer lies there, within my grasp, within my
Rejecting its pretentious talk, ethnic curtains, World Bank funds, wildlife comprehension. This was what I had been looking for,
photography, beer bottles, flavoured condoms, uncertainties, happinesses. My way for so long. The answer is to let go, to flow, and to
of hoping to find certainty in the world beyond. My way of hoping that Deep will move as languidly as time seemed to move in the
call. beautiful new world. I look around and see shimmering
lights right above me, stretched and rippling.
And then Deep called. And we talked about my work and his exhibition. I will go back Heaven... this is what it must feel like. A loneliness
soon. To fight for clean water at the hallowed halls of justice. To seek justice for a so complete and so full of joy. A kind of solitude
village in the city. To collect the forgotten pieces of my life. To move back in with
granted to you by your thoughts, revealing themselves
Deep.
in an easy flourish of shimmering colours, like a
So we can fight again, over who should use the bathroom earlier in the morning. And satin scarf shivering in the evening breeze. I smile
who gets the crossword page first. Whether the water-colours of Jamini Ray are once more.
obsolete. And he can claim that sensuality begins and ends with the mother
goddess. And I can call him ‘a patriarchal bastard’…again. And he can smoke twenty
cigarettes at one go. And I can walk out in search of the messiah in me. And land up And then my chest begins to tell me its time to leave.
as social commentator of Cleopatra and Photographer. And he can sleep with the The ache makes its way to my gut and my neck, gripping
whores who model for him, and call them ‘mother goddess’. my body like a vice. And suddenly, there isn’t any
room for my thoughts. Poignant as the moment is, grief
This is happiness indeed. Out of relief that a man wants to reclaim his ‘mother
is the last thing on my mind. Gentle, delicate,
goddess’. Out of the assurance that a woman can be a messiah as long as she is
removed from the secure world of one’s own happinesses. Out of the celebration of
transparent spheres stream slowly past me as I slowly
man and messiah-woman in the anonymity of a photographer’s dark room. Out of and deliberately exhale... My feet touch the ground
revenge on the certainties of class, religion, fidelity. Out of the triumph of the and I push off into the shimmering surface.
uncertainty of Messiah-woman, over the certainty of Cleopatra.

ATREYEE It’s been a while since I last went swimming.

atreyee@nls.ac.in

S AHIL K INI
5 Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore

soap-bubbles
HIS RELIC
gentle chattering of the rain
DATED: 22-24TH MARCH 2005, 22ND APRIL 2005 on the glass panes
of closed windows
BY DON KITBOR K.M.
sitting in a corner in the room
He was walking in a daze; his hopes had allayed the truth which should have been evident all along but that now seemed to gore lapping up the slow dry hours
deep within his heart and spill the condensed tension of endless hours of hoping over his tumultuous mind. It really did not show much half-smoked pack of Navy Cuts
common sense in him, after all, who would expect a girl like her to care about a promise mumbled in the heat of the moment? Still he could strewn idly aside
hear the love he had heard in that streamlet voice of hers as she promised to be his, forever, butfate and circumstances had contrived against bitter taste of nicotine
him. The road, or rather, the gully he was walking on bore the stench of long years of neglect and abuse. Street urchins were playing a modified proof that you’re beat up inside
gambling game with discarded cigarette packets and shouting shocking abuses at each other and anyone disturbing their pathetic princely game.
hours drag on
He walked towards the end of the gully, near the former childhood playground he stopped. Although he walked this way everyday,
smoke curling up lazily
he never really did observe the state of neglect of things. This had once, maybe some 15 years back, been a posh locality and now it was one
filling the gaps in the story
of the worthy ghettos of the city. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony, of the way its fall of grace had coincided with his. How fast things
had changed! Where were the prominent citizens who used to live here? Really, where was justice or love or faith, for that matter?
curious kaleidoscope that flits by

Turning round the bend he came to the familiar tall rusted iron-gate that guarded the entrance of a huge compound almost like Einstein looking like Robin Hood
a small farm. A chipped and cracked lengthy driveway led to the porch of an enormous Spanish style house that carried a fast fading smile of passing by in a trance
yesteryear grandeur. The paint had long since peeled, some of the wooden planks were white with fungal growth and the sweet smell of decay he’s walked down this road for ages now
seemed to linger. It really wouldn’t have made a too-popular picture postcard. More than grass, weeds and some kind of weird creeper had the stoned ‘most all of the time
run of the whole compound. and all this desolation
makes you wish you were someone else
He gave this sorry site another good look and then walked across the driveway and put a long key into the lock of the front door. The door as you look out tonight for Ophelia
swung open noiselessly. The sun shone from behind the house, leaving the living room filled with dark, inviting as it had done for so long, now sweeping along Desolation Row
promising him the company of shadows and memories. He put himself down heavily on the dusty sofa staring at the headless statue outside
the porch. He reached for the papers on the table in front of him, trying to adjust his vision to the dim ambience and gathering the papers in show her too the soap-bubbles
his hand, switched on the table lamp, going through them. Somewhere a church clock struck five times and he knew that anytime now the reels of moving pictures
company lawyer would be coming.
flowing in your stale mind
and paint a picture of that scorpio
He closed the front door and went to the dining to see what was available in the fridge. A half eaten sandwich and a six-pack soda
was all that was there. Taking the six-pack out through the hallway into the living room he glanced at the week’s growth of fur on his face. Setting sphinx
the six-pack on the table he sat himself down waiting for the call of the doorbell. The minutes seemed to tick like hours but the doorbell never who liked Greek food
rang; sifting through the proposal from Progressive Builders Ltd. his eyes time and again rested on the offer of Rs.80 lakh for his entire property and wore a calico dress
nearly twice its market value. They had even offered him a flat of his own in the residential complex that they would subsequently build on
his land. Had this offer been in relation to anything else he wouldn’t have refused, but the house, the house was what held him. How could long hours with Rapunzel
he let this house, the sole relic of his love that had been lost but had never died be brought down? It was all that he ever cared for, his only she belonged to someone else i believe
relic of her; it was here in this very sofa twelve years back to the day, before he had left for the States to pursue his dream of becoming a sound you’re glad she stopped by in the silence
engineer that she had promised him she was his, that she would wait for his return to claim her. He could still feel her tears wet his manly hands when you were waiting for rain
as she promised, but that was then a memory now and this house, its standing relic that reminded him every time he took a breath of his loss.
the bubbles rise slowly and disappear
Finding it hard to find the employment that his qualifications qualified him for, he had to keep shifting regularly to new locales and in their wake
in search of better prospects and in due course, no thanks to that tragedy called fate, he had contrived to lose contact with her. After eight years leave behind a strong lingering taste
of a moderately successful working life, his inner yearning for her overpowered him and in a moment of madness, he left behind all that he
just like the shot of tequila
had sweated for, to come back to his hometown to search for her and these four years that seemed to drift by he had no clue where she was,
that you had saved for later
whether she was alive or dead or had simply married someone else and left. Of course in some debt now, he had been out of job for more
than a year. After all, who would like to employ a perennially day dreaming man who never tried to put his past were if belonged in the past
but preferred to enact them every mortal day. Even the few friends he had made or renewed since he had returned urged him to take up the the cigarette turns to ash in the tray
offer. After all, when did you get an offer for 80 lakhs and a flat everyday? Why, he could he live just on the interest on that sum for the rest the burning smell stays for awhile
of his life they had said. But who were they? How could they know him - the transparent man with many layers? How could they ever
understand that this was his relic, his treasure; that he’d rather die then part with it? Still the company was persistent and insisted on sending their and still the rain pours outside
company lawyer to talk things over and, if possible, finalise the agreement. mingling with the thin mist
a sheet on your naked skin
All evening long he had felt a deep sense of foreboding. A feeling of uneasiness seemed to gradually creep over him just as a snake till a stray drop
stealthily glides over the face of the floor. He could feel a slight terror of the unknown but knew not what that unknown was, feeling as if the brought you back from your dreams
atmosphere was whispering into his ears that his time would soon come and this chapter of his life would be over. and so it is now

Outside it had become pitch-dark with all the streetlights standing like statuettes of defunct sentinels in a halo. Reaching for the stub the cherry out
thick curtains, he dragged them across the face of the window doing what he had done all his life, shutting himself from the excavating eyes and the bubbles disappear
of the world outside. It was already half past six and he was quite sure that the lawyer would not turn up. Maybe, he thought, they had decided
blow the last bit of grey smoke
against wasting money on him and that they’d rather have him erased and take away his ownerless property. More than anything he felt a sense
where there was once colours
of relief that at least now he wouldn’t need to here the glib talk from the lawyer that may well have shaken his beliefs.

There was nothing to make dinner from in the kitchen, nor could he consider any of the hotels, for he had, over the course of unfinished stories of your life
his unemployed year, raked up some kind of debt or the other. The only solution was to invite himself to his friend, Mohan’s house for dinner, soap-bubbles they shall remain
but he still had too much pride in himself to do so. He was all too aware that this spot which he was in was a tight one and that his situation transcient
was rapidly deteriorating, still his relic held him strong in its overpowering grip just like you’d feel if you were a goat tied as a tiger bait to a temporary
tree. and fragile
thin bands of rainbow
Just then the deep voice of a mechanic bird broke his sympathetic reverie. It was nearly seven and no one really called on him apart colours you wouldn’t see elsewhere
from Mohan and Suresh. Gathering himself, and apologetically dabbing his persona he went to the door and opened it. The porch light shone
rather hazily, and standing in the doorway, it cast a faint glow on the newcomer’s face. strike a match one more time
He stood there shocked and speechless staring at the newcomer not knowing what to say, whether heaven came down or hell SHUBHO
devoured. He stood there just gazing as if in a trance at the lawyer. An eternity seemed to pass by, an eternity for all eternities. As if coming back
shubho@nls.ac.in
from a trance he tried to recover himself. “Wouldn’t you step in?” he said in a colder, harsher voice than what he really felt. “I’d be pleased to.”
He felt inclined to slam the door behind him but checked himself. They sat facing each other, the lawyer, this damned lawyer and
he. He knew he should not be feeling this animosity towards the lawyer, but after all he had been through, when relief and joy should have
swept over, here he was sitting face to face with the one to set him free and he felt nothing but bitter resentment, cold resentment.
The lawyer was clearly ill at ease and the feeling of ‘God knows what am I’m doing’ pervaded with a thickness and stillness of a
graveyard. At last, out of some humane impulse “I’m Sorry”, mumbled the lawyer.
WANDERINGS IN A
He sat there staring.
“Why were you late?” he asked in a frosty voice. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
S OLENOID
“I wasn’t supposed to come.” AN ODE TO THE MUSE (DON’T REFUSE)
“Then why did you come to torment me more? Isn’t what I am now more than enough for you? Why, I thought I did not exist anymore, an old
forgotten memory.” Wraith yet still quite there
“No. Another lawyer was supposed to come over but he wasn’t feeling well so I was assigned the task and when I saw the name, the place, I just Silver hair
couldn’t bring myself to come; my mind wanted to but my soul told me that it was re-entering the buried past.” Silky stare
“Did you ever give up on me?” His voiced choked Golden eyes bewitching still
“Not even for a moment did I not think you. Every day I would come and walk past here after your letters stopped. Five years back I had the
Rests on the window sill.
opportunity to join this company. I thought that maybe you’d found greener grass on the other side. I’ve been busy these five years. Last year,
I came here, one last fling of the dice; oh how my soul ached to see the door padlocked and the garden overgrown. I couldn’t go on living this
Sings the saddest song there ever would be
memory. I had to hide you away?”
With glee
In harmony
He couldn’t bear to look into her eyes. There was something welling up within and he did not know what it was.
Flutters with a contemptuous twist
“Then why did you come?”
My heart in her fist.
“You were my relic, how could I not come?”
“You know I did not want to sell this place; it was my only relic, my relic of you. But now,” he paused and gazed at her softly half daring “that
Twisted angel of retribution divine
I’ve found the relic, this means nothing.”
Be mine
My love’s thine
He proceeded to open a can of soda.
Sweeps away without a glance
There goes my only chance!
© Don Kitbor, 2005

Rishabh Gupta
1st year B.A., LL.B. (Hons), NLSIU.
Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore 6

Garage even though majority of these readers are not birds, by any
stretch of the imagination. Never mind, this is what the garage
legged it and looked for refuge more reliable than the rear
wheel of a bicycle. This is precisely what the snake did. It

Blues looked like two minutes later:

The dogs which were chasing the reptilian visitor were now
found an opening and deftly slid through, and into our
underground water sump. The three labourers, not to be
deterred found longer sticks and began fishing in the water.
Having visitors is always interesting. I put it as interesting
engaged in barking their heads off at it and at the same time After a good deal of ‘fishing’ they managed to extract the
because one can never classify them under one adjective,
were trying to keep the puppies away from it, possibly snake from its watery asylum and disposed of it in a nearby
hence the general term. They could be fun, they could be
explaining to them in barks that snakes are dangerous. The pond. They then informed us that the snake was a harmless
talkative, exciting, friendly, boring, sleepy, smart, jovial,
snake had taken refuge behind the rear wheel of the bicycle specimen called chera which lives largely on rats and frogs.
formal, quiet, fidgety, noisy and sometimes musical.
and was standing its ground bravely, although confronted
However, the other day, I realized that the above set of
with seven dogs and as many humans. Baba had picked up a Then of course, it was paytime. The three labourers demanded
adjectives was kind of incomplete. It is rather trying to assign
relatively long haata (serving spoon) and was standing outside a sum that would do justice to their efforts. Needless to say,
an adjective to the experience, hence I am going to narrate
the garage. Didu was trying to convince Baba from behind in their eyes, not even the most impossible of sums settled by
the events of that fine sunny Saturday morning.
that a haata was no weapon to use against a five foot long us would seem to suffice. They argued saying if we didn’t pay
snake and at the same time trying to explain to us how garlic up to their amount, they wouldn’t come to help anymore
Nine a.m. found me in the garage busy wiping off the dust
can be used to keep snakes away. Passers by had stopped in even if our house was festooned with snakes. Baba, bargaining
the car had collected over the last week or so. Baba and Didu
their tracks and had joined the audience, which was growing for all he was worth reasoned with them saying the snake did
were checking out channel DD7 Bangla, Ma was just cleaning
in size by the minute. Ma was shouting at me from the other not belong to us and that it was still at large! The scene got
up after breakfast. That was when the visitor turned up. I was
side of the gate, over the din of the barking dogs, asking me pretty amusing in the end and soon the little party was
the first to receive him, or perhaps I should say, it. It came
to come out of the garage and asking Didu to stay indoors, laughing heartily! The meeting eventually dispersed on cordial
slithering in under the garage door, with two dogs and five
and I, as you already know was perched on top of the car, terms.
puppies after it, and made for my bicycle, which was also in
taking in the rare sight of a snake and seven dogs having a
the garage. I have remembered from childhood this basic
shouting match, the latter having the upper hand obviously. Harmless or not harmless, you will agree that our visitor de
procedure to follow in times of crisis, which is to keep one’s
reptilia certainly gave us an eventful morning! Right. So where
cool and not panic at any cost. This is precisely what I did
Help soon arrived in the form of three labourers who offered was I? Yes! My list of adjectives for describing visitors is kind
while trying to distance myself from the guest and alerting
their services in relieving us of the snake. They gathered long of incomplete. Whether I can find one to describe that morning
the folks. That is to say, I jumped on top of the car, and yelled
sticks (definitely more effective than a ‘haata’) and advanced or not is anybody’s guess, I think...
at the top of my lungs, “snake, snake!” That, as you might
cautiously into the garage. I could not but help thinking of
have anticipated, was more than sufficient to get the household
the snake’s predicament. What if I had been in its place?!?! KAUSTUV DASGUPTA
on their toes, rouse the neighbours, and dent the roof of the
Being faced with seven barking dogs, with nine people peering
car. haata - serving spoon/ladle
at you over a wall, plus three men approaching you armed
baba - bangla for father
with long sticks are undoubtedly signs that things are not
I remember reading somewhere, that a good writer always didu - bangla for grandmother
going too well for you. Had I been the snake, I would have
gives his or her readers a bird’s eye’s view of the proceedings,

QUIRK CROSSWORD 1 ROOTS

“At the stroke of midnight…” he promised
Aditya Dubey But all that we got was a divide across land.
A stroke of the pen gave it.
He was right, though – ‘midnight’ was right.
No darker period of history was ever witnessed.

“Veerji, I have locked my house. Here, keep the key.

Keep my jewels. I will take them when I come back”
“Bebe, you don’t worry. Inshallah, we will meet again soon”
It has been 57 years since. They have given up any hope they ever had.

“Run! These Sardars will butcher you!

Every single one of them has a sword!”
“These Mussale are dangerous…they don’t just kill,
They mutilate you!”
“It is better that I kill you rather than them laying their
Filthy hands on your pristine self…”

I got a letter today. From the other side.

He asked if his haveli still stood tall,
Visible as soon as you crossed the nehar.
How do I reply that even the bricks don’t exist anymore.

“What do you want with those Pakis…

Bloody jehadis! Motherf****ers all of them!”
“Who the hell do they think they are…F ***ing Hindustanis
Did you see them piss in their pants when the bomb blew in purani dilli!”

“Dadaji, why do you care what’s happening in Lahore?”

“Abba, Meerut has changed since you left. There’s nothing there for you.”

“Why this senseless wish to see your house. They threw you out, didn’t they?
You don’t matter to them. Put aside this foolishness and go for a pilgrimage in
Your last years.”
CLUES:
Yes, it was a dark period. But how was I to know that
A CROSS The sun would never shine as bright again.
1. Liquidate in order to lose identity and drink. (7) I know it is no longer my land. I have no right to call it my land –
4. Suit worn on the sleeves? (6) Not legally, not patriotically; and yet it is my land.
8. British sapper rolls free joint. (6) It is my home. It is my land.
9. Trait loses centre and west, goes around chirping. (8) My land.
11. Screw up, a spasm may signify weird behaviour. (7) I want to see it once before I die.
12. Really old chair set in air conditioner. (7)
13. Last girl lies about fibre. (5)
GANEEV
16. The sun for e.g., partly good or bad for the skin. (3)
17. Stood headless, with a turn to defeat. (5)
18. Return about gin to reach the old lady of limerick. (5)

19. Hawaiian garland is part of Sole Island. (3)

20. Delhi University ran for one half of famous pop group. (5)
21. Oh Priam! Maker of the archaic drug. (7)
22. Argue endlessly with lad to move slowly.
23. Bengali tea followed by public disturbances! To get to ancient transport? (8)
26. Cesar arms around odd coup. (6)
27. Old lady of limerick is back, guess what she’s riding? (1, 6)
28. I pose at revolutions for poppy products. (7)

DOWN
1. Hermit led engineer around company to get to nursery rhyme. (5, 5, 4)
2. Strange, queue loses a turn but ends with right. (5)
3. One with rent disturbed, but cannot be disturbed? (5)
4. In what way did sun god link to Calcutta landmark? (6, 6)
5. Conquistador’s treasure, CD got with explosive zeal. (5, 4)
6. One mixed with the water could be the maître d’. (3, 6)
7. Maniac study of Freudian discipline. (14)
10. Church chose lost ram to be the guide. (12)
14. Gus returned on top of twin paintings for dessert. (5, 4)
15. You, to a Martian are light n spinning. (9)
23. A goddess is the maker of this religious group. (5)
24. Half-Uncles might play Unreal Tournament to get rough. (5)

S OLUTIONS IN NEXT EDITION

The Wire - By Arun Sagar

7 Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore

Inspection
This was the second time Queen-Bee got pulled out of the assembly-line for wearing her
N O . 7 1 6 , 7 TH F L O O R
uniform inappropriately. It was far shorter than the length permissible. Being in the senior-
most class of the school, one must be even more cautious of how carries oneself so as not AL-GOSAIBY BUILDING
to set the wrong kind of example for the younger girls. Wasn’t it also about time that she
learnt to Respect her Body, and thereby Respect Herself? What would outsiders think if
she was seen walking across the street wearing this Renowned Uniform with half her The tape rolled in the big hall To have money for nothing
buttons open? And the hair-colouring - how long would it take for this semi-permanent Infant me cradled secure, And chicks for free.
colour to fade out? If it remained as garish even at next week’s inspection, Queen Bee Humming to the playful scream; Finding holy Nirvana
would have to accept either a suspension or an order from the Principal to chop off her red Bimbo, bimbo! In teen spirit and the lore
(or was it burgundy!) mane. Does your mommy know…! Of the Man who sold the world.
You re goin down the road, Haughty teenage me aware
The Monday uniforms are the worst. They make one look like trainee nurses in pediatric To meet a little girlio! That Modern talking was just dance pop
departments. Shabby white, with no shape whatsoever, to which is attached a manly Nursery rhyme, nay! Not the romantic whistle
collar and a pocket at the right breast. What do these wrong-side-of-forty, unhappily But oh so sad did I sigh when, To cheri cheri lady
married or divorced women get out of making young seventeen year-old girls with firm Jim Reeves begged his lady love: My weakness for history
breasts and curves, wear such sacks. One can’t do anything with them, besides keeping the Don’t let me cross over, Married with grand old violin
hemline an inch above the knee or keeping the collar-buttons open after school. Of course, Love’s stealing line In Boney M’s story of Rasputin
tennis socks are indispensable. And the shoes, what is this rule trying to achieve, making You belong to another; Lover of the Russian Queen
the good-looking girls, who deserve the attention that they get, look like sack-clothed You’ll never be mine… Into whose arms
matrons. Why would someone impose shoes such as these square, workman shoes on Becoming my childhood song Fell Moscow chicks.
pretty girls of seventeen! Why would these women get pleasure establishing equality Born to a music loving lady My mom much older
amongst the shapely ones, the cute-ponytail ones, the thankful-to-be-able-to-hide-the- Mom’s favourites later Now prayed before Knopfler’s
flab ones and at-least-this-implies-I’m-a-girl ones. Churned the teenage soul Ticket to heaven
And that husky tone As I stood beside
One needs to drive some sense into that over-athletic six-footer basketball girl. She would That lent decor to a lovely home Convincing her it is indeed still too early.
have done well for herself had her shoulders not jutted out for miles on both sides, did keep me in the dark And playing the Irish country song
screaming out loud that she’s one-of-the-guys. Short haircuts can be cute, but it has to my kiddish understanding refined Of the girl with the auburn hair.
done the right way. An army-crew cut is way off-target. And these are things that can be only to tune, not words While my sister wrestled mighty
repaired, except for the shoulders. For that, she will have just have wear clothes a little that possibly my mom did hear. For the remote buttons
more merciful around the shoulder, than those basketball jerseys with humongous arm- I swayed to crying guitar Wanting Elvis’s doggy hound songs
holes. Displaying her biceps beautifully. But of no other use. Those look good on the boys’ To the swinging sultans In the screaming raging fight
basketball team, though not the entire team. Arms too muscular can be quite repulsive. It’s And dreamy lady writers Did I not notice
the lean-but-strong look you’ve got to have to look hot in the electric-blue team jerseys. Until at 16 no longer My music loving mother’s face
Was Dire Straits a twisting tune Who probably thought
But reed-thin arms are also of no good. Like Miss Head Girl standing at the foot of the But legendary lyric. Even the stairway to heaven would do
staircase bestowing that cold glare upon some middle-school kid for daring to talk in the For now did I know what it was Ticket or no ticket.
line. Flat-chested. Rickety-legged. Wearing her spectacles with an intensity - as if she were
sent upon the earth to reform all sinners. How does she manage the look of God’s Angel
distressed by the rot that has descended upon Sweet Earth, when the pretty ones get SUHAAS NARASIMHA BALIGA
pulled out during inspection? Has she any idea what the boys in the football team say suhasbaliga@gmail.com
about her? It’s nasty though. Not like all of them look like Greek Gods. For instance, that
thick-headed Toughboy, with muscles jutting out of his head - chewing gum all the time!
Whoever gave him the idea that he was some Adonis! One can’t even look at him for more
than thirty seconds at a stretch, without having to marvel at the antics he performs in the
nooks of his buccal cavity with the aid of a two-day-old piece of gum. FACES
Yes, Ma’am.

One must try hard not to snigger, hang one’s head in remorse, understand the kind of
signals this kind of behaviour sends out to younger girls.

Now, back to classes.

Not like these skinny fourteen-year-olds don’t know anything. How difficult is it to undo a
few buttons, when they can slip in chits of paper into side-pockets of tennis bags. “You
look cute from the behind!” Which breastless fourteen-year-old talks like that? Queen Bee
would not even contemplate calling the Debate Team Captain when she was fourteen. But
she knew how to get him to call her. But this is just screaming for attention. And for the
Coach-wannabe-boyfriend to actually be thrilled, is despicable.

What class is it? Well, if Queen Bee had bothered to be alert in the last class, she would
have known that Monday morning Biology has been exchanged for English, as Miss.
Angelic Beauty will go on leave, beginning next week. The one advantage of staying out of
trouble at inspection, is that one can get to class earlier and avoid the agony of having to
endure the sermon of Goody-2-Shoes. She thinks her barrel-like trunk and greasy-oiled-
hair and hairy arms make her in some strange way Holy.

Angelic Beauty begins the onslaught of saccharine and honey. What is the point behind
behaving like Mother Teresa’s disciple if one has decided at the very beginning that half the
class ought to fail the exam in order to uphold some Divine Order. The Soft Feminine
Beauty. She’s probably the only one in the faculty that realizes that there are the shades of
lipstick other than scarlet red. And the exotic jewellery and the handloom saree are definite
plus points. Though the middle-area could do with some working out, one would definitely
rate her higher up in the aging-woman category. She’s asking a question. The class has no
answer. She expresses regret or perhaps, a threat, beautifully camouflaged in the Congenial
Smile.

Women of Substance. Who have points to prove to this male-dominated world. The class
should rely on its own power of analysis rather than regurgitating the book all the time.
What on earth does that mean? Power of Analysis! One guesses it simply means no matter
what, half the class will fail.

And Miss Smartass will get an eighty. And Angelic Beauty will never stop gushing about
her essay on Yeats. But many teachers don’t like her. Because she asks Smartass questions
in class. Because she sits in the backrow, scribbles on a piece of paper and solves the
Supertough math problem before Cuberoot, the math topper. The Debate boys think she’s
a snob. And Coach (The Complete Loser) thinks she’s Kinda Cute. What is so cute about
overly-clever guitar-strumming zero-behind math-addict who smokes in the boys’ lockers!
And anti-fit jeans are Not Cute! She doesn’t even swim, or play tennis, or dance! Socks of
two different colours aren’t exactly hip.

Oh, Jesus. The entire class is looking at me. Including Miss Babytalk. And Angelic Beauty!
This has got to mean trouble. I am supposed to express Opinion. On something. Yeats? No,
then she’d definitely have asked Smartass. What are we studying today? Look at what
page Beanpole’s book is turned to. Quick. Maybe then you’ll have some clue.

The Bell.

Thank God for small mercies. She’ll pick on me for the rest of the week, but that can be
handled later. The next class is across the road, in the Chem Lab. In the Boys’ School. One
lives for these little spells of respite from this Holy Nunnnery. The hair will have to be
redone in a jiffy.
- B Y A RJUN ‘D ADDY’ R AJGOPAL
Yes, Ma’am, I’m coming in a moment.
******
‘Oh God, the Floosie’s gonna take forever now. She should bring her hair-dresser to school
from now on!’

Atreyee
atreyee@nls.ac.in
Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
The beginning of the year has been cheerful, as it should be, as
it usually is. Some new faces brighten up the campus. As they
take the place of old dogs who have moved away to learn new
tricks, old tales are retold and new controversial issues are
raised. But the start after the break brings a buzz on the campus
and there is a feeling of expectancy… of better things to come
and a resolve to achieve greater heights.
Last year ended on a sombre note, a jarring one for many.
There were angry responses to the National Law School being
rated second; the anger directed both inwards and outwards.
Scornful comments were made against those who were rated
above us, and at those who made the ratings. Many of us felt
that it was a timely warning, that the NLS community needed
to wake up from its slumber probably induced by resting a tad
bit too comfortably on our laurels. Fingers were pointed at
falling teaching standards and at loss of focus among students.
Thoughts opened up, trying to figure out what it is that seems
‘terribly wrong with the cosmic balance’* here. Well, there
maybe a lot that is wrong about Law School but the one thing
that I see which doesn’t seem right at all is the absence of a
proper channel for easy flow and reach of information.
When we don’t hear of things we lose out on a lot. We can’t
make use of opportunities if we don’t hear of them at the
right time. At the same time if anyone’s to blame, it’s ourselves
as we ought to have kept our eyes and ears open! Well, some
do know what to look out for and hence are at an advantage,
but many miss the bus not even knowing that they were
supposed to be at the bus-stop. The problem, though not
everyone’s problem, begins right at the beginning. In spite of
efforts to help out first years feel comfortable as they learn to
live the ‘law school life’, things aren’t great. While some
adapt quickly enough, others struggle just a bit. Thus many a
time there is a lack of clarity as to what one should be doing,
and how one should go about it. And there are occasions when
an opportunity goes by and one hasn’t even heard of it until
one sees someone else having made good use of it. I think that
things can be made a fair bit simpler if there was a system for
better retention and flow of and access to relevant information.
And this is where I think the internet can be harnessed a great
deal more than it is presently.
The law school community is a small one. At any time there
are not more than 500 people on campus. We tend to think
that any bit of information if communicated at one nodal
point will be received by all through channels which are largely
semi-formal. My opinion, though, is that there are certain
asymmetries which lead to distortion of some of the valuable
information. This prevents the information from reaching all
recipients as it is intended to be. Many a time it is through
word of mouth or loose sheets which usually don’t reach
everyone. This leads to the exchange of ideas and opinions
relating to that information in its entirety being restricted to
an extremely small circle. Any further spreads of the
information tend to be cursory, less elaborate, more
opinionated and interspersed with the ‘ridiculous amounts of
gossip’*, which means that it never reaches everyone as it
should. Further, these distortions allow for a reduced scope for
expressing opinion which can find it way back to the source
with enough strength in it to make a difference. Thus the
channels of communication where ideas are sent as well as
received are not as smooth as they may appear at an initial
assessment.
The internet does not suffer from these handicaps. Its
advantages are numerous and enormous and will be extremely
beneficial even in a small community like the National Law
School. The biggest advantage is that information is accessible
whenever and wherever as long as there is access to internet.
One mail to a group will ensure a message reaches everyone.
Also, information can be copied many times over without any
distortion, loss of value or quality. All information is retained
and documented as it was, thus allowing for later verification
and greater accountability. A copy of the information can be
retained for personal use or at any rate, personally accessed
which means any learning (especially the orientations) can be
self-paced and more effective as one is ‘doing’ what he is
supposed to be learning. Editing and updating the content is
easy. Thus information available on the net is an amazing
improvement over traditional information sources or systems.
This will seem more so in Law School where the sources are
either oral, passed on through word of mouth, scribbled on
blackboards or for more formal notices, put up on notice
boards.
In Law School, a criticism of what one reads on a notice board,
etc. comes out as an on the spur of the moment caustic
comment. But this possibly useful opinion or relevant comment
may never reach the ears of the persons who could explain the
matter, say, a reason for a particular decision or rule. Neither
will it reach people who could change things for the better
based on that comment. There are millions of sarcastic
reactions to notes on 19(1)(a)**, but these have a small chance
of culminating in a positive outcome. Compare this to a
comment on the net, say on a discussion board or a blog-site,
where like thinking is fostered as people can come together if
they feel similarly on an issue. Thus an idea, a reaction or a
comment can gather steam as it moves and possibly, make an
impact on the eventual decision makers. Informed choices are
possible, and moreover, you know what other people are
saying. In fact, it affords us to influence decision-making on
all issues. The relative ease with which a comment can be
dashed off on a computer gives it an edge over putting up a
notice or making a public speech. Most of us are quite
comfortable voicing our opinions on the net because of the
character of the media which has a touch of indirectness or
‘impersonal’-ness associated with it. Discussion on the net
allows more news, more views and more vociferous criticism
paving the way for asking for changes in a system, in rules, in
tradition and so on.
A case in point is the Indian Institute of Management,
Bangalore which is a similarly small community in terms of
population. I am not sure what the ‘cosmic balance’ of IIMB
is like and whether it shows any of the symptoms of the
problems sometimes experienced and seen in Law School.
However, the internet applications they use for dealing with
information, communication and for the organisation of a
variety of events and activities are very advanced. We could
do well by borrowing a leaf out of their books. IIMB makes use
of many different applications. All of them are useful and
indispensable. All official communication is sent to the college
e-mail addresses, and usually no other media is used to impress
it upon the students. The other forum for interaction is the
student intranet website called Spidi which has a number of
useful fields ranging from opinion polls for mess food to
checking one’s attendance (‘bunkometer ’). Another
application, amazing for student communication is called
BRacket on the IIM campus, though the software itself is
called DBabble and is available for downloading free of cost.
The server hosts the software and all others can communicate
with each other using the software through the server allowing
for instant messaging, conferencing, file transfers and
discussions on anything under the sun. Of course IIMB has
better infrastructure for this: most importantly, internet in
the hostels. Our move should also be to acquire good
infrastructure; we too should get internet in the hostels, but
even if that can’t happen in the near future, the fact that we
are moving towards a situation where everyone has a laptop
and can access the internet in the wired areas would mean it
won’t make a difference. At any rate, we should make a
beginning today, so that our systems can be evolved over
time.
The possibilities for Law School with similar systems in place
are immense. I will mention a few possibilities by way of
example. The way of functioning of the Activity Based
Committees (ABCs) may change significantly. Information
many a time restricted to members of an ABC can be aired
thus providing public access to usually undisclosed, though not
secret, information. Members of a particular ABC can interact
better through instant messages, discuss ideas beforehand, rather
than sit at a meeting and then say that ‘I’ll contact him today’
or ‘I’ll do something about it’. Space for mundane but relevant
messages such as SBA (the Student Bar Association) library
open at 1:30 or Bus to Ramanagaram (where the Legal Services
Clinic-LSC works in assistance with an NGO) at 1:30 would
also be available. Minutes of every meeting as well as monthly
reports of the ABC’s would also be posted allowing those who
are interested to keep track. All important information which
should receive public attention such as the Annual Financial
Statement from FinanceCom, the Sports Com Schedule or the
new rules put up by MCS (the Moot Court Society) would
receive greater publicity and can anticipate more animated
responses, criticism and creative ideas which would serve well
in the long run. Similarly, events such as Consilience or the
NLS Debate would definitely achieve quantum leaps in efficient
organisation. Further, external contacts, for example, LSC
clients can be better contacted, and the solution to their
problems discussed on the network. This also allows better
networking between different ABC’s. Thus there is bound to be
an increase in efficiency and net productive activity.
All official communication should be communicated through
e-mail as is done in many universities world over. In any event
these communications should at least be on e-mail in addition
to the traditional circulars or notices. Apart from
communication, retention of information is a huge advantage.
A set of documents can be put up on the net for easy access.
These may include, for example, the NLSIU Act, the DARIC,
Code against Sexual Harassment, the prospectus and so on as
well as frequently updated information such as the rules
governing the Halls of Residence and other rules from the
Exam department, results of competitions, time-tables at the
beginning of a trimester, fee details, and even answer keys to
exams. ControlF searches and other similar advantages should
help in finding and using the information easily, once it is
available in the soft format.
First years can have a smoother transition if all the information
which is repeated so often in huddled circles in the library
during the first week of a law school year is put up on a web-
site. Thus, even if something missed their attention, they
should have the benefit of a backup source of information
which is easily accessible and would be available when they
need it. The same is true for lessons on use of online databases
and other research techniques. This is better than hand-outs
which may be lost. The other significant advantage is that
guides/facilitators can also refer to them once it is put up in a
good and complete compilation.
Open forums throw up many serious issues but are invariably
killed then and there by referring the matter to some sub-
committee, pleading ignorance at the moment or even calling
the open forum an inappropriate forum for certain questions.
What better forum can exist compared to the web where
thoughts can be exchanged beforehand and more importantly,
formal questions can be asked to those in charge and answers
obtained. This will help challenge any inaction by those
responsible as their replies and assurances are recorded in an
electronic form on an open forum on the net. Greater
accountability and transparency should be the outcome.
Enterprises of the nature of ‘Film Club’ can make use of net
resources, once made available and institutionalized. This in
turn will encourage more such enterprises as the existence of
minimum infrastructure would support them. LLM’s who tend
to miss out on some news will have no cause to blame if the
system is put in place. Sharing of research material,
8
information as to who did a similar project before as well as
whether a used book is available to be handed down will be
possible. The perceived widening gap between teachers and
students could perhaps be resolved with the aid of these
communication systems to some extent. An SBA teacher
evaluation is possible. Alumni can be better contacted, especially
for Legala-Strawberry Fields sponsorship if they are registered
with the alumni site of NLS. In fact, the list of beneficial uses
is endless. I further believe that once we really start using the
net within the law school community, it won’t seem amazing
or brilliant but it will seem plain convenient. My hope is that
all groups and each and every individual will be put in a place
where they can try and realise their potential … and more.
Many positive things we haven’t even thought about will
happen because the internet is such a forum where possibilities
are limitless.
The obvious criticism or fear is that it will just be another
bitching forum. I refuse to be dissuaded. But I add the caveat
that we must guard against such a contingency. My opinion is
that the more the aim is to use it productively, the less the
familiar bitching will appear. Hence, a trend has to be set
where greater use is made for official and serious stuff which
preferably reaches and benefits everyone. If this can be
managed, the cynical and pessimistic predictions will not come
true. And although I’ve written this in the context of Law
School, any college would benefit by using the internet more.
Greater use of the internet may not be a panacea to all that
ails Law School. But it should at least help fight the illness. At
any rate it is a step ahead.
AMOGH BASAVRAJ
amoghbasavraj@yahoo.co.in
* Reference to “On leaving Law School” by Arun Sagar, Quirk,
3rd Edition.
** The Law School Notice Board which is inspired by the
value of Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution which
reads “All citizens have the right to freedom of speech and
expression”.
My thanks to Chandrachud, IIMB.
The Fisherman’s Dirge
Bite O little fish bite,
throw aside your usual reticence
and take my humble offering,
for I’ve been standing here in the burning sun
for three hours straight,
while you’ve been traipsing in the cool waters
with my bait, shadow-boxing.
Bite O little fish bite,
surely you can’t have such arrogance?
My last rice served to you in obeisance
while your hungry servant and children starving.
The monsoons will be coming soon
and still you’re playfully gambolling?
Bite O little fish bite,
for an old man show some caring.
Only two tolas of charas left,
my whole becoming,
and the bastard off-season tourists cunning
won’t pay more than 300 per tola running
for rice and water and clothes and light.
Pray, my coquette, stop thy humming.
Bite O little fish bite,
for thirty years my penance holds
no teeth, no body, no mind, no joy
but your brothers and sisters have kept coming.
The sun will be going down soon,
why do you still shun some sunning?
Bite O little fish bite,
or my wrath will be terrible!
My net, Vinayak’s boat, my sons
will overpower you feeble.
Oh
But the net is ruined, Vinayak drowned, the sons dead
forever
my adversary, my joy, my God, my wife,
is such knowledge in your knowing?
Bite O little fish bite,
for it will soon be morning.
I’m hungry, cold, penniless, and dying.
I need you
for two cigarettes to keep the charas burning.
Will you ignore my beseeching vice?
Ice queen, goddess, my chillum cries
Bite
Bite O my little fish bite,
if not, my ghost will soon join your watery night.
ABHAYRAJ NAIK
9 Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore
People liked to fan the flames as
high as they would go. They would open up
the side door, roll up their sleeves, pick up
the plate and set to. The faces they would
make; they would grimace, they would suck
in air in huge lungfuls and they would speak
in a breathless clipped way. Strictly speaking,
it was unnecessary except when the fire was
being lit. In fact, the best meat comes off the
slow fire. It’s softer, better done inside and
tastes smokier. But they enjoyed it, and
everyone enjoyed watching them, the flames
licking the grill grease and spitting. So they
kept fanning. It was just the way we were.
To really explain the whole thing
from the absolute beginning, we need to go
back to the first week of the trimester, when
we were sitting in DPC. I had just come back
from Delhi, fresh and full of ideas. We were
done with the paper already, and with the
books we had brought to class, and we had
sent all the messages to all the people we
could, consideration being given to our
various balances.
“Vipul, da. I have an idea.”
“hm”
“Let’s barbeque on the terrace”
“Are you serious? Batman you choot, it’s
really complicated, and you have to know
masalas and all and besides none of us have
ever done it and we don’t even have a grill”
“I know how to do it. It’s damn simple. We
can do it entirely with ingredients from nags.
We just need a cheap grill. Shouldn’t cost
more than some thousand bucks1.”
The grill ended up costing us
about half of that, and we broke up the price
between Vipul, Balu, Parag, Spandan and
myself. I remember running into Vipul’s room
and marveling at the neat little creature as
she lay there, Vipul lying on his bed with
affected languor and not a little pride.
See, Vipul is like that. He takes ideas
as they come, and if they contain one
plausible germ in them, will run himself into
the ground to make them happen. Sometimes
I think he enjoys organizing things more than
participating therein. His point man in
Nagarbhavi was Pradeep, a bear of a man,
genial to a fault and well cultivated by Vipul2.
The grill was actually cut to order for us. In
my head, I can see Vipul in the sun holding
his hands apart and frowning decisively,
explaining what he was looking for.
Four days down the line, we
decided to get to it. Money was collected,
and a list of desiderata made. That evening,
we went to the tiny meat shops up the street
in Chandra Layout, where sweaty men
blowtorch chickens to tighten them up and
dry up the blood. The shop itself was dark
and smelly, where concrete and blood
hardened wood lived uncomfortably with
the colorful calendars on the wall. Buying
meat off the block is an acquired ability and
it used to take me a little steeling to do it.
Now, it’s easy.
Down the street, we bought a large
orange plastic tub and a knife and tongs
and an odd utensil I saw no point to for
weeks, but Vipul insisted on vigorously3. We
bought butter too, in cakes, and curd, and
salt and pepper and chilli and fresh mint.
I was as nervous as a priest in a
brothel. I had seen it done before, but when
the implicit trust of a dozen people lies on
your shoulders and all you are equipped with
is a small bag of packets and an absurdly
orange tub, things are different. I sat down
in my room and chucked the lot of it into the
tub, with an insouciance I did not feel. We
ordered more curd, calling Parag frantically
and ordering domestic ingredients. I crushed
the peppercorns using the bass 4 that
decorates my room, using what I call the
Pratique Technique. While I was sitting on
my floor in my shorts, my hands covered
with tactile yellow white marinade, Sarkar
was standing near the table in our empty
cubie, with two bags of meat, shirtlessly
cutting slits in the chicken. Nothing will bring
out the butcher instinct in a man like 8 kilos
of raw meat and a sharp knife. After I had
been upto my elbows in dairy products of
variously solid consistency and the meat, it
took Rin to take it off, and even then, I felt a
little foul.
But, on the roof, there was a breeze
and the night was clear and starry, and
where we sat, the trees of BU and the
outlying land waved symphonically. Amit
lit that fire in minutes with a mixture of
native ingenuity and practice and what we
were later to find out was just astoundingly
good luck. Jugad.
When the first batch went on, there
was a delicious sizzle and the hot black metal
first encountered flesh. Sitting there, tongs
in hand, lemons ready, shirts off, we were
the kings of the world, who had cracked it
Grilling: A History
and done what no one else had in memory.
We were raucous, we were proud, and the
meat, when it came off the fire bore up to it.
It was a swooning kind of tender and when
you bit, there was the satisfying crunch of
chunky pepper, and the buttery smoothness.
Each of us took turns being grillmaster that
night, took calls as to whether the batch on
the grill was done, whether it should be
turned over.
Frankly, we don’t achieve much.
We don’t work for it. It’s incredibly easy to
get frustrated at the output you get from
such minimal input. When something
happens to make us proud, we cherish it. In
this place, no one will compliment you unless
they have to or they’re getting something
out of it. Not complimenting people is so
ingrained an attitude trait that you can feel
it in the air. To survive, you learn pride and
you learn confidence. That night we felt both
things.
There are pictures of that night, of
the delirious joy and brotherhood we felt, of
the simple male pleasure of cooking meat
for ourselves, a idea carried flawlessly from
conception to fruition at the cost of a
hundred bucks a head. There’s a picture of
Spandan,5 black and sardonic smile lit up by
a cigarette inspecting the grill. There’s one
of all of us sweating together, blissfully.
There are pictures of creamy marinated meat,
and roasted, pale meat, and the endless
flickering flames of the coals.
****
The next time we grilled, we
decided to be more adventurous, and try
grilling both chicken and beef off our brave
little grill. It was raining in the afternoon,
damply threatening to pour all day and night.
For awhile, the plans of the morning
threatened to not take place when we found
ourselves hemmed in, looking out at the
almost guava pinkness and the dirty grey of
the wet Cauvery walls. It is a peculiar
despondency that grips me in the law school
afternoon, a feeling that my bones are water,
that all things will end now and I only venture
back out in the evening.
If Johnson market is one of the
best kept meat secrets of Bangalore; the tiny
Siddiqui, which has the worlds best grilled
phals. The phal is a thin sliver, like a schnitzel,
marinated spicily, pulled off the fire and
sliced up expertly, laden with lemon and
eaten with thin cakes of rice noodles, like
flattened hoppers. It also sells Bombay rolls,
long spring rolls filled with chicken or beef
and the usual things. Law School discovered
it through Vipul’s brother, who is a medical
student with a bike and the same unhinged
audacity that marks our own scion of that
family.
Singla and I took Vipul’s car to
Johnson Market, to buy phal slices from the
butcher there. It poured all the way and the
wipers had conked out. We sat in the car, in
the interminable traffic of Mysore Road,
under the long trees, and listened to old dance
music, with the bass up way too high.
“She’s not really hot that way, just, you know,
attractive, easy to talk to.”
“Don’t lie, it’s not like you actually talk to
girls.”
“Dude, it’s about all I do.”
It rained all the way there, and we
nearly lost our way, and at a quarter to
seven were staring at the BMTC building in
bewilderment, because we had taken a right
under the flyover; it was obviously just the
wrong right.
In Johnson Market, the early
hungry were there already, thronging around
Siddiqui, where getting food is some part a
test of your flexibility and some part your
wrestling skill. Up the street were the
butchers’, a long corridor lit by bulbs hanging
from wires off the arched ceiling. On hooks,
like brutal works of art, were haunches, were
legs, were shoulders, and then inedible things
I could not name. Our butcher was a chatty
young lad, sitting in his bloodied haven,
slapping flesh on his slab and on the scales.
It was still raining outside, but drippily, more
like a loose faucet than the downpour we
had on the way in. We could barely lift the
bag when we left.
“I love this flyover. I’ve been going over it at
least once a week for three years. There are
so many memories here.”
“I’ve driven over this flyover at two in the
morning, on my bike, with a girl on my back,
all alone”
I saw it in my head, the speed, the
youth, the rush, the sure knowledge that he
was where he was and there was no need to
be anywhere else. Singla would remember
that flyover as long as he lived.
We returned to law school late that
evening, and it was dark in Nagarbhavi, as
we cruised down the street, buying potatoes
and onions and soya sauce and another tub.
My room had at this point taken on the
semblance of a storehouse crossed with a
butcher’s and there were only the more
casual vestiges of student life present. I ran
the eight kilos of thin beef slices into the
bigger tub and carefully massaged them into
a single soaking brownish substance, with
the ground mint leaves clumping on it.
On the terrace, we discovered that
our fire god, the splendid Amit Agrawal had
not been able to start a fire after nearly two
hours of trying. It had been raining all
afternoon and evening, and the air was
damp. Huddled into the stairwell, the
barbeque and Amit outside valiantly trying
to communicate, we waited. People came
and people left. There was a Championship
league match on and the score floated up to
us.
I was never very satisfied with the
results of that night. It didn’t have the tantric
charm of the first session. Far too many
critical people came. The conversation
clumped into little groups, and there were
unpleasant remarks and snide comments. We
hadn’t left the beef to marinate long enough
and it was tough. The grill was small and
people were hungry. Technique was being
loudly critiqued. Paisa needed to be vasooled.
“Arre, haddi pakradi, bhenchod.”
Somehow, out of the embers of
that disaster, we pulled the remains of a
barbeque. After 2 in the morning, only the
truly dedicated were left. Looking around
the flame, we were one community again,
and the dissatisfied had left. They would be
dissatisfied elsewhere. They find a way.
Perhaps I am being defensive. The
beef was chewy, and I really should have
soaked it in vinegar or papaya to soften it
up. I found out later from the Shezan Maître
d’ that tenderizing it with a meat hammer
was the trick. I wish I had known then. The
chicken was excellent regardless. The
potatoes and onions were brilliant when we
got the opportunity. Dhruv cut himself often
in the process, but there was only an
acceptance, a curse, and a hurried cleansing.
It was a sharp knife.
Vishal ate what would come to be
the most troublesome potato of his life that
night, though he didn’t know it then. We were
extraordinarily careful about it. It did not
come near the meat knife. It rested in fresh
coals, under a meat free area of the grill-top.
He’s a strict vegetarian, and he liked it. Until
bad things happened.
It was only at five, after so many
rounds that the chicken was done and only
a few kilos of the beef was left that we
disbanded, staggering off the terrace, unable
to eat any more. The beef was slipped into a
bag, and like everything else, left up top to
be dealt with the next day.
I didn’t make class. Very few of us
did. It was the way we were.
****
We really fucked up that day. We
should just have chucked it, like a booze
bottle, into ISEC and let nature and her
carrion take care of it. Things were planned,
but they were never executed, because we
were just that lazy. The grill was cleaned off
fondly, the plate washed, and everything
returned to my room.
Unfortunately, there was one thing
we did nothing with. The two bags of beef,
one the leftover stuff and the second the
bones and fat we had cut off earlier. It sat
there, when people smoked at night. It sat
there when people went up to ponder during
the day. It was there in the afternoon after
class, dull in the sunshine. It sat there like a
bad omen.
I wonder often why we did nothing
about it. We’re not stupid people. It’s just
that it was part of the way we lived our
lives, hoping for unpleasant tasks to be
removed to the future, postponed, extended.
There were many of us and somebody else
would do it. We hoped for it. No one did it. It
was the way we were.
Like every omission, we should
have seen it coming. One day, the GWC
wanted to know why the water was smelling
bad and checked the tank. In the tank was a
small red bag, opened, and fat and bones,
floating and sinking variously.
I found out by chance that day
because in the 11:00 break that day, I heard
something about a stink in hostel. I finally
decided to go back and chuck it into ISEC
for once and for all. Spandan and I sped
down the long slope home on Parag’s scooter.
It wasn’t there. There’s surely some irony in
the fact that I realized first that we were in
trouble when a stinking fetid bag of beef
was not on our terrace.
Before lunch, there were the seven
notices on 19(1) (a) from the Second Year
batch, hurt and furious and pointing fingers.
Soon we heard from everyone the
assessment of the public that we were guilty.
Messages showed up on phones from our
seniors who had graduated. Our reputations
had overnight gone to zip. Suddenly, we were
defilers of religious sentiment, polluters of
water resources, the degraded rich immoral
detritus of society6, and guilty under fifteen
sections of the IPC. Naturally, as is to be
expected, people helpfully publicly testified
against our characters in public:
“Satyajit and Roshan are perfectly capable
of this.”
That night at the showcause, in
cruel imitation, four of us were grilled at a
time by the GWC and the rest of us, twenty-
two in all, were left out to marinate. There
were lies and there was truth, and they were
not the same that night. The problem was
that those stupid, over-the-top notices had
brought pressure from the administration
on the committee to catch someone, fine
someone, or refer someone to DARIC. When
a matter leaves hostel and goes to the
Warden, the Director, or the Exam
Department, the nature of inquiry changes.
In the Academic block, a vicious kind of
justice operates, where only those who are
innocent to an improbable extent get away
unscathed. There is the waiting, and the
carrion-like consultations amongst faculty
members, and the advice of the “better”
students is sought. It’s like mob justice, only
less visible. Luckily that hasn’t happened to
us so far. We all got fined and will split the
fines equally, as a community.
It was obvious that it wasn’t us.
First, most of us were Cauvery dwellers and
wouldn’t want to bathe in meat water.
Second, we would have been the obvious
suspects and would have had to be stupid
to have done it7. Yet, it could not have just
fallen in. It had been lifted, by someone who
had climbed the 12 foot high platform, into
a tank 6 feet above the platform. There is a
steel manhole cover on the tank. There are
some sick people in Law School.
Immediately, even before the
showcauses were held, a notice had appeared
banning cooking on the terraces. Grilling in
Law School as we knew it had come to an
end. Yet another beautiful thing had been
removed from the world just as it was
coming to be established, because it had
come to be known for only its unfortunate,
unlikely byproduct. That’s the way things
are around here. The intelligent, the
individual and the creative suffer for that
which they create, and that which they
stupidly omit. That’s just the way things
are.
-BATMAN
1
Bajaj kicked in and said very confidently
that it should cost no more than Rs. 150.
Bajaj can be incredibly inaccurate and
equally confident at the same time. It’s a
gift.
2
Pradeep also helped the Batch of 2007
Mid Law School Party happen.
3
I later found out it was a device specifically
intended for melting butter over a small
flame. Oddly, it was very, very helpful.
4
No Pickups, body scratched as hell, rusted
strings and switches but beautifully and
boldly red, a bittersweet reminder of the
things I cannot be.
5
Spandan is one of the few of us with any
initiative. One day, he came up to me looking
fierce and determined. I was worried.
“I’ve had enough of this bullshit. That’s it.”
I gawked.
“It’s gotten too much for me. Things have
got to change.”
I continued gawking. He firmly placed a Milds
in the corner of his mouth and lit it in one
fluid movement.
“From now on”. Exhale. “I am going to be a
complete wastrel.”
As far as I can tell, the only change is that
Spandan now smokes more expensive
cigarettes.
6
One notice said just about that.
7
I swear. We really aren’t. Not that stupid.
Quirk | July - August 2005 | Bangalore
1 they were discussing a movie or
Something weird happened to me today.
Actually, I am not sure if it was today
as I have completely lost track of time.
I think it has been more than four days
since I slept. Of course, the ten minutes
of passing out into unconsciousness
here and there doesn’t count as sleep.
Does it?
My insomnia has watered the seeds of
an unnamed feeling. Something inside
me is different. Something inside me is
making me feel too many things all at
once. I can’t put my finger on what it is.
The obscurity of my inner self is getting
to me.
I needed to get out. I needed to step
outside of myself. That is exactly what
I decided to do.
With the last thread of sanity in my
pocket and a Rs. 500 note, I left home.
After riding aimlessly for a few
minutes, I decided to go to the coffee
shop. From the looks of it, the coffee
business was doing great. I scanned the
area for a seat. Fortunately, the couple
sitting towards the corner left.
The owner of the coffee shop was
severely understaffed. There were only
two waiters to serve the entire crowd.
Unlike my usual self, I didn’t lose my
patience when the waiter took his time.
Instead, I decided to survey the coffee
shop. It amazes me how these coffee
shops attract so many people. I guess
it’s the ‘cool’ tag that makes business so
easy.
Its easy money provided certain things
are taken care of.
Firstly, the location of the café. The
closer it is to a school or a college, the
better. Secondly, the ambience and
interiors. The key is to make the café
look cool, so that the young minds can
have their custom-made movie scenes
with the café as the backdrop.
A jukebox, mirrors, stylish couches,
stylish coffee mugs, graphic
displays…they all add to the coolness.
Thirdly…
“Good afternoon, sir, what can I get for
you?”
I wasn’t expecting company….
I glanced at the giant menu on the wall,
facing the waiter’s back.
“One Deluxe Cappuccino and a chicken
sandwich.”
“Sorry, sir, we are out of chicken
sandwiches.”
“Do you have chicken burger?”
“Yes, sir. We do.”
“One chicken burger then.”
“Ok, I’ll repeat the order sir. It’s one
Deluxe Cappuccino and a chicken
burger. Right?”
“Yes.”
He disappeared into the sea of waiting
tables. I failed to recollect what I was
thinking before I was interrupted. My
mind needed rest. I had been thinking
too much over the past few days.
Nothing had come of it. The unnamed
feeling came gushing back to me. I felt
strange. I felt sad.
I decided to do what I had been trying
to do over the past few days…..to write.
The idea machine had broken down. All
attempts to fix it have been futile.
It was beginning to……………….
“Can I take this chair please?”
Caught off guard, I took a second to
reply.
“Sure.”
The guy who asked for the chair was
greeted with a smile, on his return to the
table by two of his friends, one female
and one male. The female was cute. Our
eyes met for a brief second and I
thought she smiled at me, most probably
for the chair.
The three of them looked very alive and
were soon deep in conversation about
HEMANTH M RAO, FINAL YEAR, R.V COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
something I failed to overhear. Probably
probably they were old friends, meeting
after a long time.
All of a sudden, the Idea Machine
kicked into action.
Oh, fuck, it’s simple, Hemanth… Just
observe these people and make stories
for them. Let these people be your
characters. Paint their worlds with your
words.
Grand idea…finally something
worthwhile.
Here goes nothing…..
Two guys, one girl and a coffee shop. I
take one quick look at the three of them.
They are still locked in conversation. I
begin painting……….
The girl looks like a Nafisa. The guy
who asked for the chair is Ritesh and
the other guy is Siddarth. They have
known each other since childhood.
Dead end. Too clichéd…New characters
please, and please avoid the naming
ceremony.
I look around trying not to make my
intentions obvious. Since most people
don’t like being under the lens.
Just when I thought, the auditions were
turning out to be fruitless. I spotted one
guy sitting by himself to my right. One
peek at him and I was convinced I had
found my hero.
He looked dull and lost. Here is his
story…..
Once again, here goes nothing.
Today is his 28th birthday. He is tired...
He has lost every fight that life has
picked with him. He has witnessed his
dreams die before his eyes. He is lonely.
He very often thinks about all that he
wanted to do with his life.
He wanted to be an artist.
At the crossroads of his life, he made
the society’s choice. He chose plan B.
He was too weak to break the strings
that his family and society had tied him
down with. He regrets not taking the
risk, the risk of doing what he wanted to
do most.
He chose life over his dream. Wrong
choice. Wrong fucking choice……
With the transition from boyhood to
manhood came his biggest enemy. Low
self-confidence…it was his weakness,
his curse, his disease. The knock out
punch came when he stood with the two
choices he had as a young graduate, one
in each hand (write some competitive
exam and study further and get a job OR
join film school, write scripts and make
movies).
He looked at the right choice and chose
the wrong hand.
He didn’t have enough self-belief to
make the right choice. He was too weak
now to give up everything and start
afresh. He didn’t have the strength to
face the same demons all over again.
Soon the bottle of sleeping pills would
become his saviour.
2 All content appearing in Quirk or on www.quirk.in is independent of the
“Sir……. Sir…….. Are you ok? ...Can you
hear me?”
I opened my eyes to find a mob of
people around me with the waiter
kneeling by my side. I felt tiny drops of
water on my face. It sent a chill down
my spine.
“What happened to me?” I asked.
“I came to serve your order and found
you frozen in front of the mirror…..and
you collapsed all of a sudden…..are you
ok, sir?”
“Yeah…..I think I will be fine.”
10
Quirk: Unveiling Edition 4
A new edition of Quirk releases every two months, with each edition
showcasing a particular theme of relevance to the university community.
We introduced ourselves with ‘Why Literature’ in January, gave expression
to ‘The Indifferent College Student’ in March-April, and grappled with
‘The Artist and the Critic’ in May-June. In our newest avatar, we present:
‘My Place in Anarchy.’
Writing for Quirk: The September-October Issue
We really do appreciate new writers contributing to Quirk. Apart from
pieces exploring the theme, we encourage contributions of all other kinds
– articles, poetry, stories, prose, visual art, crosswords, quizzes, trivia…..the
list goes on. No restrictions on content or style or form. Go ahead, and
surprise us with your literary offerings – you meet our quirky quality
standards, we’re good to publish!
The theme for the September-October edition of Quirk is ‘NEW
MORALITIES.’ The flexible deadline for submissions is October 17th,
2005.
Email your submissions to quirk@nls.ac.in . For postal submissions, send
your contributions to (please mark the envelope with ‘Attn: Mr. Suhas
Baliga’):
The Quirk Editorial Collective
National Law School of India University
Nagarbhavi
Bangalore – 5600072
India
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mission to promote literary interest in the college community while
serving as a comfortable forum for quality literary expression for young
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We remain extremely indebted to Reliance Industries Ltd., for their very
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To help us remain independent, we look for meaningful partnerships with
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